[from HN] The experience of the first employee of a Y Combinator startup
Where I work
When I first started at BackType, I came into the office1 everyday. My commute involved taking the BART into downtown SF and then taking the bus to the founders' apartment. I was working a ton, and after a couple weeks I was feeling pretty exhausted.
By this point I was synced up with the codebase and product direction, so I decided to work from home one day. I didn't ask the founders for permission or anything, I just told them via instant message "I'm working from home today". The founders didn't care -- they trusted me to make the right decision for myself.
It was a great decision and I started working from home more and more. I've found that if I work for 8 hours with a half-hour commute each way I'm going to feel pretty exhausted at the end of the day. But if I stay at home I can work for 12 hours and feel fine.
Part of the discrepancy is that when I work from home I am able to easily pace myself. I take mini-breaks to play piano for a few minutes while pondering a problem. In the middle of the day, I generally go for a run at a big park near my house. Being too deep in coding for too long without a change of pace can really unbalance you, so exercising in the middle of the day is really refreshing.
Even though I work a lot more than I have previously at "regular jobs", I find that I'm a lot healthier now. Since I work from home so frequently, I get a lot of exercise and can cook for myself.
I've converged on going into the office twice a week and working from home the other days. Sometimes I go into the office less, and sometimes I go into the office more. It depends on how I feel and whether I feel we have a lot of syncing up to do that's better done in person.
Read the whole post.
