Night Moves - staying productive while working odd hours - Company Business and Marketing

Home Office Computing, May, 2000 by Dave Johnson

Keep odd hours? Home office night owls share their secrets for staying productive

IT'S NO WONDER MICHAEL LEYBA CLAIMS THE BEATLES hit "A Hard Day's Night" as his personal anthem. In addition to holding down a full-time day job as technology instructor for the Midland Independent School District in Midland, Tex., Leyba logs an additional 10 to 15 hours each week fielding late-night technical support questions for the Web-based help desk service ExpertCity (www.expertcity.com).

"Since I basically help people solve computer problems all day," Leyba says, "it makes sense that someday I'll just do this full time from home."

Leyba is just one of countless folks who keep right on working from home after the rest of us have called it a day. However, burning the midnight oil presents some unique challenges--whether you're a moonlighter like Leyba or for one reason or another find yourself regularly working the night shift.

AROUND THE CLOCK Surprisingly, each of the night owls we interviewed has a unique reason for working off hours. Consider Roy Kingsley, for instance. As president and chief software developer at the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Lynk Software, Kingsley typically works from 4 a.m. to noon. Why? "I've always worked those hours, since I grew up in my dad's trucking company and we started at 4 a.m. As a developer, I find that's when I'm most focused. I know a lot of programmers work late at night, but that's not me"

On the other side of the clock, you'll find Elliot McGucken, CEO and Webmaster of www.jollyroger.com. The site is a Web portal launched by McGucken last year while he was a professor at Davidson College in Charlotte, N.C.

"I got in the habit of working late at night from college," he explains. "The computer labs would be empty in the middle of the night, and you could work with the least distraction. Then, as a physics Ph.D., I was used to working strange hours, which were dictated by whenever inspiration struck. Jolly Roger is an extension of all that."

So McGucken often works late at night, and then sleeps through the morning--just when much of the country is rolling out of bed. In this case, McGucken contends that living on the East Coast is a real benefit to his workstyle. "Because it's a few hours ahead of the rest of the country," he says, "I rarely get phone calls before noon. I wonder whether, if I moved to California, I could adjust to different work hours."

Interestingly, McGucken's nocturnal schedule isn't merely a matter of habit: "One advantage is that [Internet] connections are always really fast at night, and there's not much else going on--I always feel like I'm getting ahead." And although speedy connections are nothing to take for granted, McGucken admits there's an even more important reason to eschew the 9-to-5 routine. "When you work in the creative field, you need to work when the inspiration hits you," he says. "If you wait till the next business day to act, the idea might be lost. You can't just turn yourself on and off."

STAYING IN TOUCH When workers and their colleagues and clients are all working disparate hours, effective communication is key. What's the method of choice for McGucken and many other night owls? "E-mail," McGucken answers immediately. "Almost everything I do gets done through e-mail."

The same goes for Actinic Software, a company whose team of developers works from home from far-flung places--England, France, and Australia, as well as from the United States. With so many workers in so many time zones, it's impossible for everyone to punch the clock during a standard block of hours. That means developers who rely on each other's efforts are often working while others are asleep. Real-time communication is hardly a routine event.

"It's not really a big deal," says Actinic president Chris Barling. "Even though much of our communication is done through e-mail, if you're well organized, it's never a problem. We simply don't let deadlines creep up on us."

Though Barling makes team communication sound effortless, Actinic has a secret weapon: a public conferencing and electronic bulletin board system sponsored by an Internet service provider (ISP) called CIX (www.cix.co.uk) that lets the company's teleworkers stay in touch via the Internet.

"Our developers typically use the phone every few days, but they're conferencing on CIX five or six times daily," Barling explains. "That's in addition to [handling] about 200 pieces of e-mail each day."

Using e-mail and message boards to stay in touch, team members can weigh in when they're working, leave messages for their colleagues on the next shift, and check back to get the answers they need.

"The communication systems are in place and in the background," says Barling. "E-mail isn't like a phone call. It's under their control when they choose to deal with it, so they can concentrate on the task at hand and know they'll get the information they need by the following day."

In fact, a good online collaboration tool can be the glue that holds night and day workers together. While CIX is strictly a subscription service for that ISP's clients, there are scores of free variations available. Here are just three: