Interview with Ben, a CEO/Engineer who works remotely

I'd always worked in offices, but when I started working fulltime on IPinfo almost 2 years ago, it was just me - I'd work out of coffeeshops and my favorite, the local library.

As I started hiring a team, making it a remote one just made a ton of sense to me: I could hire anyone from around the world, instead of just locally, and I could remain flexible with my own location and schedule.

I'm working on IPinfo.io - we're known for our free IP geolocation API, which handles around 500 million API requests a day for around 100,000 business and developers.

We also do a lot of work around different IP address data sets, such as company and carrier details for an IP, domains hosted on an IP address, and IP type classification, where we'll let you know if an IP address corresponds to a business, a hosting provider, or a consumer ISP.

I used to like working a lot at night, but with 3 kids and a wife, I've become more of a morning person! I usually have breakfast with my family, and then either head to the gym with my wife, or get started on work.

I usually spend the mornings catching up on emails and messages, or doing phone calls. I'll grab some lunch, and then try and get most of my creative work done in the afternoon - either coding, planning or getting something else done.

I'll usually have dinner with the family, put the kids to bed, and then get a few more hours of work done in the evening, which can be my most productive time.

Yeah, at home I have a home office room with a desk and a big monitor, and I've also got a desk at a nearby co-working space.

I work from home a couple of days a week on average, and head into the co-working space on the other days. If I'm on vacation or traveling, I usually head to the nearest Starbucks.

I keep all my work essentials in a laptop bag - charger, notebook, headphones etc - so as long as I have that on me and there's wifi, I can be fairly productive anywhere.

I spend a lot of time in Gmail and Google Calendar! I also use Workflowy a lot for my current to-do-list and other longer-term priorities.

I almost always listen to music while I'm working - I find it helps to block out distractions and get me into the "zone".

I have a bunch of different Spotify playlists I switch between. Alternatively, I browse through the Discover section, which usually has great recommendations.

Staying on task is hard, especially when there are a bunch of different important things all going on at the same time, which means there's a lot to juggle!

The thing that helps me the most is keeping a to-do-list of everything I need to get done today, and another one for everything I'd like to get done this week.

I use Workflowy to keep track of these, but I often also write down my daily to-do-list on paper next to my laptop, so I have a physical reminder.

Flexibility! It's great to be able to work from anywhere, at any time.

It's also great to be able to hire people from anywhere around the world who are great at what they do, and not be limited to people who happen to live near to me.

One of the hardest things to do when you have a completely flexible schedule is to know when to stop! When you can work at anytime, you can sometimes feel guilty when you're not working, as you know you could be.