I enjoyed this post, and it's not like we can say "you made that up" or "you're just trying to get fake Internet points" because it's been tried and tested. Joel's telling us exactly what he did and his awesome results. Thanks for sharing!
103 karma · joined April 1, 2015
I also use Hubstaff for tracking my time and getting time reports. I used to just guesstimate how much I should bill clients but that was such a headache.
I haven't used it personally but I also hear good things about Insightly.
I've worked remotely from Oregon, Seattle, Singapore, Tokyo and Manila (where I am now). None of the cities except Manila caused any problems once you get around the time zone issue. The Internet in the Philippines is generally slow (averaging 1 mbps) and expensive. I'm not sure if this is due to infrastructure or a monopoly or something, but it's tough to work with a slow, expensive connection especially when you're a web developer.
I manage it by working late at night or early in the morning, when the connection seems to be faster (less people are awake and online). I also keep two different connections handy--one is my mobile data, which I can hotspot and use on my computer, and the other is a portable broadband device. That way, even if one of them loses connection (did I mention in addition to it being slow and expensive, the Internet is unreliable???) I can still work using the other one.
Even with the awful Internet I still get things done in Manila, and if it's possible here it's possible anywhere.
It's more of an issue of technology making us interact in ways that are less human. Check out their link on the study about cell users being less likely to display prosocial behavior.