On Working Remotely

Before we get started, I'd like share a thought about working together remotely.

1. Don't be fooled by the tools - many of the tools we use to work remotely together invite us to respond instantly, rapidly and briefly. The invitation in this group is to work thoughtfully, deeply, in long form and holistically. In my experience the most of the tools we use are NOT conducive to this kind of work. When I want to do in depth work I usually revert to good old documents and work there, collecting, sorting and elaborating my thoughts. When I have something that feels whole and mature I bring it to the collaboration tools in order to communicate it and share it with others. Loomio itself, I have found, is also not a reliable place for writing long form (more than one backspace click has lost me substantial chunks of work).

2. Make time and space for work - since you are being asked for in depth responses, you need to make time to actually do work. Allocate time for this. This does not typically fit within the paradigm of "responding on slack/loomio."

3. Connecting with others can help generate flow - doing this work on your own can be challenging. Working together can help to to get thoughts flowing. If you are stuck, reach out to someone on the team, sometimes a brief interaction (slack or email) will help kick things off. Sometimes you may need sync time with someone. Reach out to whoever you feel drawn to talk to and connect soon. Do not try to coordinate multi-participant meetings (unless you absolutely have to). Just make sure to echo the resulting work back to the group.

4. Share in whatever way is most effective for you - writing, loom ... whatever feels most appealing and fluent for you to communicate what is on your mind.

5. Pace yourself - you can make dedicated times during the week to check in with the Slack channel and Loomio group. You can choose to go to Loomio to work instead of having Loomio summon you to work. There are two things you can do to prevent Loomio from demanding your attention every time something is posted or you are mentioned:

   1. In your account settings you can ask for a "catchup email" at whatever frequency you want it (once a day, every other day or a specific weekday) and disable separate notifications.

   2. In the working-group page (top right corner) you can choose your notification settings for the group.

6. If in doubt ask for help - if you feel that the remote-work is not flowing for you, ask for help, others may also be experiencing difficulty.