The Rhythms of Remote Work

Open Spaces is Gun.io’s field guide to the tools our engineers actually ship with. In today’s installment, veteran full-stack architect Tim Kleier discusses the ebbs and flows of successful remote work.

The other day, I was catching up with a friend of mine—he’s a lawyer, a sharp guy, who recently started getting out of the office to try his hand at remote work. The flexibility was appealing. So was the promise of more time with his family. But a few weeks in, he admitted: “I’m not getting much done–distractions are everywhere.”

During COVID, my friend’s partners all switched to remote work and the office was empty, so he kept going into work and wasn’t forced to adapt to remote work. So he’s just now experiencing the difficult transition. But many people still struggle with remote work. I know I have. 

When at work, most social interactions and mental triggers are related to doing work. When at home, those interactions and triggers are related to concerns at home. The need to walk the dog, take out the trash, or connect with the family. Those are all important things, but for my lawyer friend, they certainly aren’t billable hours. 

Remote work has all the promise in the world—freedom, autonomy, 20-foot commutes—but focus, motivation, and consistency are hard to find. The key to finding them: rhythm.

After almost a decade of working remotely, I’ve learned that success in remote work isn’t about grinding harder or limiting distractions. It’s about syncing your schedule with your biology, your constraints, and your context. Remote work is a tempo game.

Biological Rhythms: Work with the Grain

Let’s start with the body.

Whether you’re a morning lark or a night owl, your energy throughout the day follows a curve. At the core of this are ultradian rhythms—natural cycles that repeat every 90 to 120 minutes. Each cycle includes a period of heightened focus and alertness, followed by a dip. That dip isn’t a failure or a bug in the system—it’s a biological signal that your brain needs a break.

When you fight the dip, you start to feel sluggish. Your focus drifts. You try to push through with caffeine or sheer willpower. But when you honor that rhythm—working during the peaks, resting during the troughs—you get more done, and it feels smoother. Less friction, more flow.

When I need a break, I might go for a run, walk the dog, or do the dishes. Or I might just step outside for a minute. Something that shifts my posture and resets my brain. These aren’t wasted minutes—they’re part of the rhythm. They make the next focus cycle possible. That’s often when the best ideas sneak in sideways, and many of my best breakthroughs happened on a run.

I also know that I do my best thinking and work in the early morning, before everyone’s awake. And I can’t seem to focus in the early afternoons. So I do deep-focus work at 5am, and then break for coffee with my wife at around 6:15. In the afternoons, I’ll step away from the computer and water my plants, mow the lawn, or take a nap. 

Constraints Are Your Calendar

Biology matters, but so do boundaries. Remote work doesn’t remove constraints. It just makes them less visible. So the trick is: make them visible.

My kids’ school drop-off and pickup create natural bookends to my day. I used to see them as interruptions. Now, they are just part of the rhythm and I weave them in as mental breaks. 

This isn’t about becoming a productivity monk. It’s about designing your schedule with intention—layering the things you have to do (external constraints), the things you should do (like eating or resting), and the things you want to do (like deep creative work or problem-solving).

Here’s how I think about it:

Layer	Example	Notes
Fixed constraints	School pickup, team standup	Use these as boundaries
Biological rhythms	Focused time, energy drops	Don’t fight them—flow with them
Personal intention	Writing, planning, strategy	Protect your best hours for these
Recovery	Walks, meals, rest	These are part of the system, not a break from it

The Myth of Constant Focus

We like to imagine we can sit down and focus at will, all day long. But attention doesn’t work like that. It’s a finite resource—not a switch you flip, but a currency you spend.

The other day, I was talking with my daughter about screen time. She asked, in the blunt way kids do, “Why is screen time bad if you do it all day for work?”

It’s a fair question. I told her: “When you’re watching a show or playing a game, you’re giving your attention away. And that’s fine sometimes—especially when it’s fun. But when I’m working, I’m getting paid to give my attention. It’s still screen time, but I’m investing it, not just spending it.”

That idea—that attention has value—is something we too often forget when working remotely. Just because you’re at your desk doesn’t mean your attention is present. Just because a meeting is on your calendar doesn’t mean it deserves your focus. Remote work blurs the boundaries between presence and performance.

And the truth is, you can’t be fully focused all day. It’s not a willpower problem—it’s biology. Focus comes in cycles, not permanence. What matters isn’t whether you can stay glued to your screen from 9 to 5—it’s how often you can bring deliberate, high-quality attention to what matters.

For me, if I can carve out two or three solid focus blocks in a day, I’ve moved the needle. The rest—the Zoom purgatory, the inbox cleanups, the Slack scrolls—that’s filler. Necessary, maybe. But not the stuff that compounds.

If you treat attention like a renewable resource instead of an infinite one, you’ll protect it better. You’ll budget it. You’ll spend it on work that matters.

And, maybe, you’ll stop feeling guilty for needing a break.

Breaks Are Not Optional

One of the most surprising lessons of remote work is that rest is a responsibility. It’s not optional. It’s not indulgent. It’s part of the job.

In an office, the coffee walk or the watercooler chat gave you a built-in reset. At home, it’s easy to go straight from task to task, tab to tab, hour to hour. But your brain doesn’t reset without a gap. And fatigue isn’t always a sign to push through—it’s often a signal to pause.

Here’s a trick: when you’re stuck or spinning wheels, stop. Step away for five minutes. If you can, move your body. Your attention needs a reset switch, and motion is one of the best ones we have. (Bonus: the dishes will be cleaner, too.)

Rhythm is the Framework

There’s a concept in jazz called “time feel.” It’s not just about playing to the beat—it’s about riding the rhythm in a way that feels alive, responsive, dynamic. Remote work has its own time feel. And like jazz, you can’t fake it. You have to feel your way into it.

For me, it’s:

• Early morning focused time
• Mid-morning meetings
• Afternoons for collaboration, admin, or stepping away
• Clear workday boundaries (like school pickup or making dinner)
  

I don’t hit this perfectly every day. But when I do, work feels like a flow, not a fight.

Finding Rhythm

That lawyer friend I mentioned at the beginning? I haven’t had the chance to follow up with him yet. But if I were to check in, I’d probably ask the same question I ask myself every few months: What does a good day actually look like for you?

I’d guess he might say something like: “At the office, I didn’t always like the structure—but it gave me a rhythm. I knew when to start, when to stop, and when I could actually focus.”

That’s the trade-off remote work asks us to navigate: freedom without rhythm turns into noise. Without some scaffolding—biological, practical, or intentional—your day dissolves into a blur of interruptions, context switches, and reactive tasks.

But rhythm is something you can reintroduce.

It doesn’t have to be rigid. It doesn’t have to mimic the office. It just has to be yours—anchored in your constraints, aligned with your energy, and responsive to the work that matters.

If I had to guess, I’d say he’s already started feeling that truth. That attention is finite. That breaks are part of the process. That presence matters more than hours. And maybe, that getting into a rhythm isn’t about maximizing output—it’s about finding a flow that’s actually sustainable.

That’s the real work of working remotely.

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