A few days ago, I participated in a small focus group about a new site/startup that is just getting off the ground. After sitting through the Vision, the pitch, and a couple rounds of "what makes a site sticky?", I could boil down everything I was thinking to two points:

Give me something useful. My time is the most precious thing I have. If you waste it against my will, you're out. I don't care if you're a great site. I don't care that you may be able to meet my needs someday... maybe I'll come back then.

I need something now. if you've managed to catch my attention enough to get me to click through to your site, I need to see what the value is right now. Make your pitch, you get a paragraph or a couple images at best. If you're the best at aggregating my news, great, say it. If you're a great way for keeping in touch with friends... difficult... but tell me why/how.

When people are just getting started working from home, they go one of two ways:

a) They are wildly productive without the constant barrage of calls, officemates, random PA announcements (yes, some companies do them), and the various other things that interrupt their day; OR

b) They are wildly unproductive with the constant barrage of calls, family, random television shows, cleaning (yes, some people clean), and the various other things that interrupt their day; OR

Can you guess why I'm writing this post. ;)

These are my notes, ideas, and practices from telecommuting extensively over the past 5 years...

My first telecommuting situation was on a government contract back in 2002. Our team was working on 30 day iterations - we didn't call them iterations in those days - but it made for very tangible deliverables and direction and the boss agreed to let us telecommute one day each week. During my first couple telecommuting days, I made a great effort to get things done, but I found it hard to get started and even worse to stay focused. Then it hit me: I needed a commute.