[smizell]

I've had successes and failures working four years remotely, so that's my disclaimer. But the key for me has been to have a dedicated space with a dedicated computer for work. If it's easy to work on the couch you'll do it, so try to never work outside your area (if you can). Only work in your work area.

Also, protect your personal time. Do simple things, like mark out your lunch time on your calendar and don't let meetings creep into it—you'll be surprised how much this can help. Stop work at a time like 5pm and propose alternate times when people schedule things after it. People are usually open to moving meetings and may have not considered your stop time. Time zones make this harder as it's hard to keep track of when lunch is for people. Meetings during personal times should be exceptions.

Try to keep work things off your phone, though that's easier said than done with things like Slack or email. They make it too easy to work without feeling like you're working. I'm failing here currently :)

These above are all things you can do as an individual. But I think the success will also depend on your team. If you are the only remote person, it will be harder than if everyone is distributed. You'll need to ask people to write more and act like everyone is remote because you'll miss out. I've found that if you're the only remote person, it helps if your team works from home a day or two a week so they have to work remotely.

To summarize, set clear boundaries and expectations with yourself and your team with how and when you work and try to move your team to be remote-first.