Reid Dossinger

I saw an interesting line chart  recently that showed the number of telecommuters declining. The first thought is that this seems surprising. Technology is getting better and we can do more and more all the time on our mobile phones. Why would people be doing less telecommuting? I'm lucky enough that I can work from home occasionally, and usually try to do so once a week. The conveniences are largely to my personal life: it instantly saves me at least an hour and a half of the day by cutting out my commute, I can start my work day earlier, my home computer is faster than the one I have at home, and I can get small household chores done. It's really nice, a definite advantage, and I don't feel that there's any productivity loss. But I can also say that there are definitely ways that telecommuting still doesn't match the office experience. Here's three ways: Conference calls are still lacking and are no substitute for a conversation. I've said bef...

Every morning, when I fill in the hours on my work's electronic timesheet, I'm struck by how odd it is that we're still judging our work by the time spent on it. It's odd because it's old-fashioned. In the paper and phone world, you could really only do work when you were at work. But we do work all the time now. I check my email when I first wake up. Does that mean I start my day at 6:30 am? Should that be reflected on my timesheet? How about when I respond to an email or check Basecamp when I'm on the bus? Does my work day start then? How about when I look at Google Analytics at night or think about email newsletters when I'm in the shower (which I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I did this morning)? On the other side, if someone finishes the work that they're meant to do, why should they feel like they need to stay at work until 5:00, just because that's the official time of the work day? I don't think anyone would argue that time spent ...