About Manage Your Attention

My name is Peter Malmgren, and I’ve been working remotely for the past five years as a software engineer.

Remote working has largely been a positive thing for my family. It’s enabled us to move to the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. During my workday, I can step outside for a hike. I can flex my working hours and go on a mountain bike ride if I want to. And during the summer, I can take time to play with my daughter.

I think the world would be a better, happier place if people were free to choose not only where they worked, but where they lived too. And that’s why I created this blog.

Managing your attention is the key to success

Being remote cuts out a ton of the bullshit that distracts us at work. Things like commuting and open office plans. But once all these things are gone, we’re left alone with the most distracting thing of all: ourselves.

This is both empowering and daunting.

We are the only thing standing in our own way to being productive and successful.

Lessons from five years of remote work

Working on remote teams for the past five years has given me a lot of perspective on what works and what doesn’t. Here I’ll share with you the things that have worked for myself and the teams I’ve been on.

Here are some topics I’ll focus on:

• Notification and message overload
• Prioritizing multiple streams of communications
• Managing employees and teams remotely
• Effective team communication using tools like Slack, Jira, and good old fashioned email
• Mental and physical health

Many of these techniques are well-known to companies who operate remotely, so you may find them floating around on other blogs. You might even find different opinions on certain topics. I prefer to take strong stances on theses subjects, because I find that strong opinions help create interesting discussions.

My goal with this blog isn’t to be completely original, but to share the lessons I’ve learned and help make our world a better place to live and work.