Some of us have been lucky enough to have  already been working from home (WFH) prior to the world events.  This has allowed most of us the ability to easily ready  our homes fit our needs of family members whom now must also work from home  For those that have suddenly been thrusted over the past weeks into the working from home lifestyle, here are some tips that I’ve learned over the last 2.5 years being home 100% of the time.   I blogged about this a few years ago when I started with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting so some of these are updates.

Keep a Schedule & Routine

This is still probably one of the most important aspects of working from home.  Prior to coming into the WFH realm I worked a normal 8-5 job. It required me to be in the office before 8, so I decided when I switched I would keep to the same schedule. I continue to wake up at the same time and report to my desk at the same time ready to tackle the day every day.  Now, depending on what I have going on, it’s nice to be able  to wake up earlier  (like 5:30AM) so that I have some extra time to focus on things.   If I have my sons with me (for those that might be co-parenting), that also allows me to focus without having to tend to their needs. My advice is to keep whatever schedule best works for you and your employer.  Thankfully, my employer allows me to set my own schedule and manage my own time which is helpful.  Having that flexibility makes things easier on me as a work from home employee.

Beyond keeping a consistent schedule, keep a consistent routine as well.  As I mentioned, I get up about the same time.  While I *could* wear pajamas or whatever I wanted to work, I choose not to.  I get up, get showered, shave, brush teeth, etc and get fully dressed so that I’m ready for the day.  I find this makes me more productive. Once ready, I go downstairs for my coffee and usually for some breakfast.  Sometimes I’ll take food to my desk but usually I sit at my kitchen table and watch the world wake up while I enjoy my first cup of coffee.  Then it’s time to go to the “office”.  Warning the commute can be horrible so watch out for traffic jams (kids or pets) in the hallways and stairwell.  13 seconds later, I’m at my desk ready to get started.  Once there, I’ll start on any daily tasks that I need to get done and then continue on any project work I might have on my plate.

Fast forward to lunch. It’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll eat lunch at my desk.  Some days I do, others I don’t.  It’s important to take breaks away from your desk as it’s really easy to get sucked into working all the time.  My advice is to make sure to take a break for lunch and try to disconnect as much as possible.  Some days, for me, I’ll make lunch and play Xbox (Titan Fall 2), or  go for a walk, or just read a book while eating.

Come evening time, I wrap things up somewhere between 4-5PM.   Some days it’s later and some days it’s earlier usually because of kid responsibilities.  Some Due to the nature of my job some evenings I must work later due to time zones and sometimes even on the weekends due to system availability.  I recognize that it is all part of the job, however, I’m able to find a balance that works for me while maintain any responsibilities I might have.

Workspace

When I joined with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting (DCAC), I invested some cash into my workspace.  I tend to like a clean and clutter free desk, so I invested in a good quality standing desk from Uplift Desk.  I started out with 2-27” monitors and operated with that for quite a long time.  Within the past 6 months I further invested in an additional 27” monitor so now I have three.  I have found that having three monitors (actually 4 if I used the laptop itself) allows me to have a better workflow in my daily tasks.  You might have to play with configurations or ideas, but don’t be afraid to invest (if you can) in things that help you work from home.

Of course, you can invest a lot of money into your workspace.  I know people have to walls of monitors, expensive desk chairs, extreme web camera setups, and the list goes on.  Do what you can to make it your space.  At times I’ll even work on my secondary machine standing at my kitchen bar because it works.  You don’t have to drop a ton of money and there are ways to make it work with minimal amounts of money.

Here I am just using a laptop tray that I bought off of Amazon to allow me to have a “mobile standing point” on just about any flat surface.  I find that mixing up my location from time to time help to get my mind focused on the task at hand.

Communications

Maintaining communication with your colleagues as well as your family is important, especially during this time of chaos. Without it the self-isolation feeling can be overwhelming. For me this means I check up on my family (they all live at least 6 hours away) on a semi-weekly basis to ensure that they are healthy and are doing as best as possible. Having peace of mind that they are doing well helps me better focus on work, and keeps me from getting distracted by worrying about them. Thankfully with my work I am able to take breaks and have a phone conversation, or I’ll even have a video call with them via Skype or FaceTime.

Beyond just family, make sure to have open dialogs with your managers on your status.  If you are struggling with things, let them know.  They cannot help resolve any issues if they don’t know they even exist.  I have a check-in with Denny once or twice a month just to see how things are going.  Now, at DCAC, we chat constantly via Teams.  During the day, evenings, weekends, or even holidays usually someone on the team is talking.  This makes is much easier to have some interaction and feel connected to the team.

Distractions

Working from home comes with a whole new set of distractions, namely the television.  I have found that, thankfully, the television remains off during my working time (I have a TV in my office) and I can count on one hand the number of times it’s been on while I’m working.  When I first started working from home, I had a real feeling that TV would be a huge distraction for me.  Turns out that wasn’t my distraction.  My distraction normally is the internet.  Twitter, social media, blogs, news, etc.  For me, it can be a quicksand place to get lost in and the next thing you know 3 hours have gone by.

Here are some things I use to help keep those in check:

• Focus Assist – For Windows users, try the Focus assist. You can adjust the focus to only show certain alerts or none.  This helps me to block out any unwanted alerts for a period.  I don’t know if Apple products have something similar.
• Internet Traffic – For Chrome (or Edge) users – StayFocusd will provide allotment of time to browse certain websites, like YouTube for example. Once you have burned through you allotted amount of time, it blocks that site until the next day.  Of course, there are way around this, but it helps to keep you in check.
• Set Do Not Disturb (DND) – These days we are inundated with communication tools. Slack, Teams, Skype, Hangouts, pick one.   If you need time to focus, don’t be afraid to set your status on all these tools to “Do Not Disturb”.  This will let your teammates know to not bug you or just send you an email.  Respect that DND and don’t answer things unless they are critical.  I’ll even set my iPhone to DND so that I won’t get text messages or phone calls during that time.
• Close Your Email –Really, it is ok to close your email client and not have it open. There have been studies done about the amount of time that gets wasted when you address an email and try to resume what you were focused on.  It’ll be Okay to close your email, trust me.  The messages will be there for when you get back to it.  If it’s an emergency most likely the person will call you and then you can handle it.

Summary

The way in which you work has probably shifted.  It takes time to adapt and get used to the new “normal.  I know that was the case when I shifted to working from home 100% of the time.  Now that you’ve been working from home for a bit, what has been your experience so far?  What distractions do you have to contend with and how do you handle them?  Let me know by leaving comments!

© 2020, John Morehouse. All rights reserved.

Some of us have been lucky enough to have  already been working from home (WFH) prior to the world events.  This has allowed most of us the ability to easily ready  our homes fit our needs of family members whom now must also work from home  For those that have suddenly been thrusted over the past weeks into the working from home lifestyle, here are some tips that I’ve learned over the last 2.5 years being home 100% of the time.   I blogged about this a few years ago when I started with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting so some of these are updates.

Keep a Schedule & Routine

This is still probably one of the most important aspects of working from home.  Prior to coming into the WFH realm I worked a normal 8-5 job. It required me to be in the office before 8, so I decided when I switched I would keep to the same schedule. I continue to wake up at the same time and report to my desk at the same time ready to tackle the day every day.  Now, depending on what I have going on, it’s nice to be able  to wake up earlier  (like 5:30AM) so that I have some extra time to focus on things.   If I have my sons with me (for those that might be co-parenting), that also allows me to focus without having to tend to their needs. My advice is to keep whatever schedule best works for you and your employer.  Thankfully, my employer allows me to set my own schedule and manage my own time which is helpful.  Having that flexibility makes things easier on me as a work from home employee.

Beyond keeping a consistent schedule, keep a consistent routine as well.  As I mentioned, I get up about the same time.  While I *could* wear pajamas or whatever I wanted to work, I choose not to.  I get up, get showered, shave, brush teeth, etc and get fully dressed so that I’m ready for the day.  I find this makes me more productive. Once ready, I go downstairs for my coffee and usually for some breakfast.  Sometimes I’ll take food to my desk but usually I sit at my kitchen table and watch the world wake up while I enjoy my first cup of coffee.  Then it’s time to go to the “office”.  Warning the commute can be horrible so watch out for traffic jams (kids or pets) in the hallways and stairwell.  13 seconds later, I’m at my desk ready to get started.  Once there, I’ll start on any daily tasks that I need to get done and then continue on any project work I might have on my plate.

Fast forward to lunch. It’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll eat lunch at my desk.  Some days I do, others I don’t.  It’s important to take breaks away from your desk as it’s really easy to get sucked into working all the time.  My advice is to make sure to take a break for lunch and try to disconnect as much as possible.  Some days, for me, I’ll make lunch and play Xbox (Titan Fall 2), or  go for a walk, or just read a book while eating.

Come evening time, I wrap things up somewhere between 4-5PM.   Some days it’s later and some days it’s earlier usually because of kid responsibilities.  Some Due to the nature of my job some evenings I must work later due to time zones and sometimes even on the weekends due to system availability.  I recognize that it is all part of the job, however, I’m able to find a balance that works for me while maintain any responsibilities I might have.

Workspace

When I joined with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting (DCAC), I invested some cash into my workspace.  I tend to like a clean and clutter free desk, so I invested in a good quality standing desk from Uplift Desk.  I started out with 2-27” monitors and operated with that for quite a long time.  Within the past 6 months I further invested in an additional 27” monitor so now I have three.  I have found that having three monitors (actually 4 if I used the laptop itself) allows me to have a better workflow in my daily tasks.  You might have to play with configurations or ideas, but don’t be afraid to invest (if you can) in things that help you work from home.

Of course, you can invest a lot of money into your workspace.  I know people have to walls of monitors, expensive desk chairs, extreme web camera setups, and the list goes on.  Do what you can to make it your space.  At times I’ll even work on my secondary machine standing at my kitchen bar because it works.  You don’t have to drop a ton of money and there are ways to make it work with minimal amounts of money.

Here I am just using a laptop tray that I bought off of Amazon to allow me to have a “mobile standing point” on just about any flat surface.  I find that mixing up my location from time to time help to get my mind focused on the task at hand.

Communications

Maintaining communication with your colleagues as well as your family is important, especially during this time of chaos. Without it the self-isolation feeling can be overwhelming. For me this means I check up on my family (they all live at least 6 hours away) on a semi-weekly basis to ensure that they are healthy and are doing as best as possible. Having peace of mind that they are doing well helps me better focus on work, and keeps me from getting distracted by worrying about them. Thankfully with my work I am able to take breaks and have a phone conversation, or I’ll even have a video call with them via Skype or FaceTime.

Beyond just family, make sure to have open dialogs with your managers on your status.  If you are struggling with things, let them know.  They cannot help resolve any issues if they don’t know they even exist.  I have a check-in with Denny once or twice a month just to see how things are going.  Now, at DCAC, we chat constantly via Teams.  During the day, evenings, weekends, or even holidays usually someone on the team is talking.  This makes is much easier to have some interaction and feel connected to the team.

Distractions

Working from home comes with a whole new set of distractions, namely the television.  I have found that, thankfully, the television remains off during my working time (I have a TV in my office) and I can count on one hand the number of times it’s been on while I’m working.  When I first started working from home, I had a real feeling that TV would be a huge distraction for me.  Turns out that wasn’t my distraction.  My distraction normally is the internet.  Twitter, social media, blogs, news, etc.  For me, it can be a quicksand place to get lost in and the next thing you know 3 hours have gone by.

Here are some things I use to help keep those in check:

• Focus Assist – For Windows users, try the Focus assist. You can adjust the focus to only show certain alerts or none.  This helps me to block out any unwanted alerts for a period.  I don’t know if Apple products have something similar.
• Internet Traffic – For Chrome (or Edge) users – StayFocusd will provide allotment of time to browse certain websites, like YouTube for example. Once you have burned through you allotted amount of time, it blocks that site until the next day.  Of course, there are way around this, but it helps to keep you in check.
• Set Do Not Disturb (DND) – These days we are inundated with communication tools. Slack, Teams, Skype, Hangouts, pick one.   If you need time to focus, don’t be afraid to set your status on all these tools to “Do Not Disturb”.  This will let your teammates know to not bug you or just send you an email.  Respect that DND and don’t answer things unless they are critical.  I’ll even set my iPhone to DND so that I won’t get text messages or phone calls during that time.
• Close Your Email –Really, it is ok to close your email client and not have it open. There have been studies done about the amount of time that gets wasted when you address an email and try to resume what you were focused on.  It’ll be Okay to close your email, trust me.  The messages will be there for when you get back to it.  If it’s an emergency most likely the person will call you and then you can handle it.

Summary

The way in which you work has probably shifted.  It takes time to adapt and get used to the new “normal.  I know that was the case when I shifted to working from home 100% of the time.  Now that you’ve been working from home for a bit, what has been your experience so far?  What distractions do you have to contend with and how do you handle them?  Let me know by leaving comments!

© 2020, John Morehouse. All rights reserved.

Some of us have been lucky enough to have  already been working from home (WFH) prior to the world events.  This has allowed most of us the ability to easily ready  our homes fit our needs of family members whom now must also work from home  For those that have suddenly been thrusted over the past weeks into the working from home lifestyle, here are some tips that I’ve learned over the last 2.5 years being home 100% of the time.   I blogged about this a few years ago when I started with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting so some of these are updates.

Keep a Schedule & Routine

This is still probably one of the most important aspects of working from home.  Prior to coming into the WFH realm I worked a normal 8-5 job. It required me to be in the office before 8, so I decided when I switched I would keep to the same schedule. I continue to wake up at the same time and report to my desk at the same time ready to tackle the day every day.  Now, depending on what I have going on, it’s nice to be able  to wake up earlier  (like 5:30AM) so that I have some extra time to focus on things.   If I have my sons with me (for those that might be co-parenting), that also allows me to focus without having to tend to their needs. My advice is to keep whatever schedule best works for you and your employer.  Thankfully, my employer allows me to set my own schedule and manage my own time which is helpful.  Having that flexibility makes things easier on me as a work from home employee.

Beyond keeping a consistent schedule, keep a consistent routine as well.  As I mentioned, I get up about the same time.  While I *could* wear pajamas or whatever I wanted to work, I choose not to.  I get up, get showered, shave, brush teeth, etc and get fully dressed so that I’m ready for the day.  I find this makes me more productive. Once ready, I go downstairs for my coffee and usually for some breakfast.  Sometimes I’ll take food to my desk but usually I sit at my kitchen table and watch the world wake up while I enjoy my first cup of coffee.  Then it’s time to go to the “office”.  Warning the commute can be horrible so watch out for traffic jams (kids or pets) in the hallways and stairwell.  13 seconds later, I’m at my desk ready to get started.  Once there, I’ll start on any daily tasks that I need to get done and then continue on any project work I might have on my plate.

Fast forward to lunch. It’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll eat lunch at my desk.  Some days I do, others I don’t.  It’s important to take breaks away from your desk as it’s really easy to get sucked into working all the time.  My advice is to make sure to take a break for lunch and try to disconnect as much as possible.  Some days, for me, I’ll make lunch and play Xbox (Titan Fall 2), or  go for a walk, or just read a book while eating.

Come evening time, I wrap things up somewhere between 4-5PM.   Some days it’s later and some days it’s earlier usually because of kid responsibilities.  Some Due to the nature of my job some evenings I must work later due to time zones and sometimes even on the weekends due to system availability.  I recognize that it is all part of the job, however, I’m able to find a balance that works for me while maintain any responsibilities I might have.

Workspace

When I joined with Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting (DCAC), I invested some cash into my workspace.  I tend to like a clean and clutter free desk, so I invested in a good quality standing desk from Uplift Desk.  I started out with 2-27” monitors and operated with that for quite a long time.  Within the past 6 months I further invested in an additional 27” monitor so now I have three.  I have found that having three monitors (actually 4 if I used the laptop itself) allows me to have a better workflow in my daily tasks.  You might have to play with configurations or ideas, but don’t be afraid to invest (if you can) in things that help you work from home.

Of course, you can invest a lot of money into your workspace.  I know people have to walls of monitors, expensive desk chairs, extreme web camera setups, and the list goes on.  Do what you can to make it your space.  At times I’ll even work on my secondary machine standing at my kitchen bar because it works.  You don’t have to drop a ton of money and there are ways to make it work with minimal amounts of money.

Here I am just using a laptop tray that I bought off of Amazon to allow me to have a “mobile standing point” on just about any flat surface.  I find that mixing up my location from time to time help to get my mind focused on the task at hand.

Communications

Maintaining communication with your colleagues as well as your family is important, especially during this time of chaos. Without it the self-isolation feeling can be overwhelming. For me this means I check up on my family (they all live at least 6 hours away) on a semi-weekly basis to ensure that they are healthy and are doing as best as possible. Having peace of mind that they are doing well helps me better focus on work, and keeps me from getting distracted by worrying about them. Thankfully with my work I am able to take breaks and have a phone conversation, or I’ll even have a video call with them via Skype or FaceTime.

Beyond just family, make sure to have open dialogs with your managers on your status.  If you are struggling with things, let them know.  They cannot help resolve any issues if they don’t know they even exist.  I have a check-in with Denny once or twice a month just to see how things are going.  Now, at DCAC, we chat constantly via Teams.  During the day, evenings, weekends, or even holidays usually someone on the team is talking.  This makes is much easier to have some interaction and feel connected to the team.

Distractions

Working from home comes with a whole new set of distractions, namely the television.  I have found that, thankfully, the television remains off during my working time (I have a TV in my office) and I can count on one hand the number of times it’s been on while I’m working.  When I first started working from home, I had a real feeling that TV would be a huge distraction for me.  Turns out that wasn’t my distraction.  My distraction normally is the internet.  Twitter, social media, blogs, news, etc.  For me, it can be a quicksand place to get lost in and the next thing you know 3 hours have gone by.

Here are some things I use to help keep those in check:

• Focus Assist – For Windows users, try the Focus assist. You can adjust the focus to only show certain alerts or none.  This helps me to block out any unwanted alerts for a period.  I don’t know if Apple products have something similar.
• Internet Traffic – For Chrome (or Edge) users – StayFocusd will provide allotment of time to browse certain websites, like YouTube for example. Once you have burned through you allotted amount of time, it blocks that site until the next day.  Of course, there are way around this, but it helps to keep you in check.
• Set Do Not Disturb (DND) – These days we are inundated with communication tools. Slack, Teams, Skype, Hangouts, pick one.   If you need time to focus, don’t be afraid to set your status on all these tools to “Do Not Disturb”.  This will let your teammates know to not bug you or just send you an email.  Respect that DND and don’t answer things unless they are critical.  I’ll even set my iPhone to DND so that I won’t get text messages or phone calls during that time.
• Close Your Email –Really, it is ok to close your email client and not have it open. There have been studies done about the amount of time that gets wasted when you address an email and try to resume what you were focused on.  It’ll be Okay to close your email, trust me.  The messages will be there for when you get back to it.  If it’s an emergency most likely the person will call you and then you can handle it.

Summary

The way in which you work has probably shifted.  It takes time to adapt and get used to the new “normal.  I know that was the case when I shifted to working from home 100% of the time.  Now that you’ve been working from home for a bit, what has been your experience so far?  What distractions do you have to contend with and how do you handle them?  Let me know by leaving comments!

© 2020, John Morehouse. All rights reserved.

Knowing your data is very important when it comes to writing code. Now I’ll admit that I am very far from being a developer, however as a DBA, I spend much of my day’s performance tuning code. In doing so, I get to see many ways code can introduce excess database reads.,

One of the most recent things I have come across has to do with NULLs. The environment I was working in had no default values in their table design, so it was riddled with NULL values. Over the years they had implemented coding standards to try and mitigate these NULL values within their code.

In every column search or join they would start with (VALUE ISNULL or VALUE IS NOT NULL and VALUE = @parameter) as one example. Adding this syntax to a query reduces SARGAbility causing a lot of unnecessary reads and overhead. This is especially true when the column definition is set to NOT NULL and the check was just put in place as part of a standard. For clarification SARGAbility just means searchability and the ability to seek within an index for faster performance.

Another practice I’ve seen lately is the use of LTRIM and RTRIM functions as a standard clean up method.  First, I highly recommend doing this on the application side or upon whatever insert method you use as the data is being populated into your tables.  It is a much better practice to clean up the data once rather than coding for the clean up in every WHERE, JOIN or CASE statement in each query you write.

Let’s look at a simple query that incorporates both of these methods. Note: we will be turning on STATISTICS IO, TIME to look at our performance improvements.

First let’s look at our table design and note a few things. We will be querying WorldWideImporters Sales.Invoices table using SalesPersonID which is an INT set to NOT NULL, IsCreditNote a BIT NOT NULL and ConfirmedRecievedBy which is a nvarchar(4000) that allows NULLs.

After looking at our table let’s take note of the WHERE clause. The first check is validating if IsCreditNote IS NOT NULL, then we check on SalespersonPersonID for a specific value and lastly, we a cleaning up our free form field ConfirmedRecievedBy for a specific person’s name.

SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON

SELECT BillToCustomerID, OrderID, InvoiceDate

  FROM [WideWorldImporters].[Sales].[Invoices]

  WHERE IsCreditNote IS NOT NULL 

  AND SalespersonPersonID = 7

  AND LTRIM(RTRIM(ConfirmedReceivedBy)) ='Aile Mae' ;

Let’s run this and see what the Stats and Query plans shows us.

As I do with any performance tuning the first things that I note is CPU time and elapsed time then Ill note table scans and reads. We will use these metrics to measure our improvements. I would like you to take note of the tables it uses to complete the query. There is the Invoices table along with a Workfile and a Worktable it needed to use in order to return the desired results.

Next let’s look at our execution plan and note our seeks and scans. You can clearly see we are getting, and Index seek on the Primary Key as well as a Scan on our index for ConfirmedRecievedBy. It’s also letting us know that we have a missing index but let’s ignore that for now.

Now that we have some performance data, let’s look at some changes we can implement to make it behave better.

Since we looked at our table design, we can comment out the IsCreditNote IS NOT NULL check simply because does not allow NULL values so no need to check for them.

SELECT BillToCustomerID, OrderID, InvoiceDate

  FROM [WideWorldImporters].[Sales].[Invoices]

  WHERE --IsCreditNote IS NOT NULL 

  --AND

  SalespersonPersonID = 7

  AND LTRIM(RTRIM(ConfirmedReceivedBy)) ='Aile Mae' ;

Executing the query again, you’ll note that the plan remains the same, but we see a significant reduction in CPU time and elapsed time just by removing unnecessary checks.

Finally, we will execute the query again this time assuming our application managed the cleanup of our values prior to insertion for the ConfirmedRecievedBy column. We will remove the LTRIM & RTRIM functions allowing the optimizer to seek on our index instead of scanning all the values.

SELECT BillToCustomerID, OrderID, InvoiceDate

  FROM [WideWorldImporters].[Sales].[Invoices]

  WHERE --IsCreditNote IS NOT NULL 

 -- AND

  SalespersonPersonID = 7

--AND LTRIM(RTRIM(ConfirmedReceivedBy)) ='Aile Mae' ;

 AND ConfirmedReceivedBy ='Aile Mae';

Now, you can see a huge improvement. We now are only doing 2 scans with 50 logical reads verses 422 and CPU time is now 0 compared 47ms. Our elapsed time even dropped from 230 to 127 which is over 100ms less. Furthermore, note that the missing index suggestion is now gone. It is important that you don’t just add indexes because the optimizer suggests it, wait until you are done tuning your code before addressing you index needs. Lastly note by making these changes the optimizer no longer requires the use of worktables nor workfiles.

There is still one last thing we can do to this to improve performance, which is out of the scope and purpose of this blog but let’s do it anyway. That is get rid of the Key Lookup. You can read more about what those are in my blog here. After adding the required included columns, you can see how much cleaner and faster the simple query now runs. We now run with only 20 logical reads, 0 CPU time and 90ms elapsed timed. That’s a 264.44% performance improvement.

This was a simple tuning exercise to show how implementing coding standards without making sure they are applicable to your data can cost you performance. As a developer you should always know your data. What works with one set of data may not work with another, it is very important to know the differences and code for those.