Depth of Field: Gregory Han

Design & technology journalist Gregory Han on home office ergonomics, the thrill of seeing a piece go viral & the zen of a long hot bath

So what do you do? 

I am a design and technology writer for Design Milk, covering those topics from a prism of design. I’m also the homewares and gift guide editor at The New York Times’ Wirecutter. I also do travel writing for AirBnb and I’m a contributor to Dwell, with a weekly column covering simple home solutions.

Can you share a little bit about your background?

I started out working as art director working in an office and then I switched over to freelance in publishing designing books and magazines and packaging from home. Then returned to an office as a toy designer. It was sometime in there that I realized I wanted to return to freelancing. I’d  started writing on the side and eventually transitioned to working for Apartment Therapy as their LA editor where I was full-time but working from home. 

And now you’ve gone back to being freelance.

It feels like full-time. Certainly it’s a full-time responsibility with a freelance title. 

That's one of the challenges, isn’t it? People think you're just lolling around and eating bonbons and occasionally being inspired to work

I should admit that I was eating a chocolate bonbon a moment ago! Somebody sent me a sample box of candy. So life occasionally can grant me those pleasures!

What were some of the biggest lessons you had to learn about yourself in order to WFH successfully?

Initially I was fashioning my work week after what I was used to do in an office. But working from home is not the same. Ten plus years later, I'm fine with not abiding by a strict schedule but being aware of my physical and mental state and abiding by when I'm most productive. There's some times when it's important to walk away from the work and take a break, even if it’s stepping outside for ten minutes. And it’s important to not feel guilty for not being available 24/7. When I first started, I was available all the time and that's just not sustainable. 

I remember that you used to be a night owl. 

That's changed and I’ve actually flipped my script. I am probably most productive maybe an hour after waking up and then I slow down in the middle of the day and then pick up steam again in the late afternoon, early evening and then I shut off again around seven or eight o'clock to have dinner, spend time with [his wife] Emily and pursue my own interests.

How is work coming to you these days?

I was really fortunate when I left Apartment Therapy because I had people asking if I was interested in working with them. Right now I’m reaping the rewards of the work that I put in over the last five, six years, making good contacts by asking if there anything they need help with? In general, it's a very organic process where someone will contact me through Instagram or LinkedIn or something. Of course the pandemic had an impact on that. Initially I took a considerable cut. It was significant enough that it made me hustle even harder. Now it’s paying off and I have a lot on my plate! 

What about rates? Is it consistent or is everybody a different story?

Everybody's a different story. I've been surprised at some of the rates I've been given that are really, really, really fair. And then others, I'm kind of like, oh, that's all you can pay. You're a pretty decent sized company. But I also look at the long-term benefits of establishing and maintaining a relationship with somebody who can  consistently give you work versus the big one off and the long-term ones are always the best as a freelancer.

Can you share a little bit about how your workspace has evolved over the years?

In our last home, I’d created an office in a closet. Here, I took what I learned in that small space and expanded it. I’m still working on a shallow Ikea desk, it's not very deep. I have two desktop computers because I report on both Windows and Mac computers and I like having that type of real estate to have all my windows open. And I made sure that I had a really task chair. That's the number one thing that you should put your money towards when you work from home besides your computer. Your body will tell you after a while that it sucks sitting this long. Other than that, I like a certain sized keyboard. I like a certain type of mouse,

You do like a dark space.

That's probably born out of being an art director and like a dark space for the contrast of what’s on my screen.

Do you have your eye on anything that you want to add?

I would love to have a higher desk. I like to have my arms perfectly parallel with my keyboard to avoid carpal tunnel and I just can't accomplish that with the the setup I have right now. I'm five years in and now starting to really, really think about ergonomics and lighting.

You said that you've now become a morning person? What time does your day starts? And how does it start?

I start in bed actually. I check work stuff before getting out of bed probably until eight. So let's say I wake up between 7 and 7:30, I do that and then I get out of bed, have breakfast. I never skip breakfast. I might do some gardening for maybe 30 minutes to give me a foundation of the day of what's happening outside versus always being inside. And then nine o'clock almost on the dot I check into my emails and ping back my messages. And I don't force myself to answer quickly. There are exceptions, but in general, I make sure that people know that my work day starts at 9:00 unless it's an emergency. Luckily I’ve been really fortunate that the people I work with take that seriously so when I get contacted for something that needs to be done after hours I know it's pretty important because they just don't do that. 

Do you have any tricks you use for organizing your day?

I always set aside the first half of the day for internal, quiet work. Once I've filed a story, then I feel accomplished and I'm like, okay I can relax now, I can go talk to somebody and discuss another project so then after lunch is when I schedule Zooms or phone calls.

Do you work off of a to-do list?

I work off my Google Calendar. I guess that works as my to do list. That works as my reminders and I set up reminders all the time because my memories shot. 

How do you know when you've gotten an enough work done for the day or do you just say, it’s five, I'm over it?

Some days it's 5 o'clock and I'm done! Then there’s other days, if I’m feeling the flow and maybe I didn't get as much done in the first part of the day that I'd hoped to get done, I try to ride that wave a little later. So that's the benefit of working from home. You listen to your body and your mind and adjust accordingly. So I'm not super strict with when and how I get things done as long as it gets done. 

Who do you turn to when there’s the inevitable office politics?

When that happens, I usually talk to Emily. Occasionally, I’ll reach out to my colleagues and say like, Hey, like this is happening, what do you think? How are you feeling? Other times I might operate as the bridge between people who are having some conflict because I feel like I can offer a third person perspective. I talked to somebody recently and told them, Hey, anytime you're feeling frustrated, I'm here to listen. So it doesn't even have to be office politics, it can just be office dynamics and working to strengthen those dynamics. It's really hard when you work remotely as a team to maintain those connections in a meaningful manner. The medium edits a lot of the face-to-face connections that we make. 

Was there a moment or an event when you have said yourself, ”Yes I've made it!” or a moments where were proud of the work you’d done?

One would be the piece that I wrote for Wirecutter last summer about hand sanitizer. It went viral and I was interviewed about it for NPR. It was the first piece I've ever pitched cold. Let's credit Emily. She said, ‘You should pitch this idea, this is a really good idea’. And so that day, I  pieced together an outline and pitched it to my editor who I normally work with. It wasn't really her department but she sent it over to the person who handles that and he said, this is a great idea, I’m on board, here's the outline of what we can offer you and here's the deadline. I immediately got on it and I felt excited and when I finished it and submitted it, I was happy. Then I was told that it was the best performing post on the site by three or four times the next piece I was like, ‘Holy crap.” It’s awesome to be validated like that, to have something I was wondering about was something that other people were wondering about too. And then to have NPR reach out was definitely icing on the cake. I was very nervous about that because I'm not somebody who’s comfortable on camera.

You mentioned gardening and spending time with Emily and friends and working out. Do you have any other self care rituals? How often do you get to them.

I take a hot bath every day. I love hot baths. That's my ShangriLa on a daily basis. Sometimes when I've worked out really hard, the following morning I like to take a hot bath just cause it loosens up all the things that aren’t feeling so loose. But other days I’ll take one in the evening, like around 5 or 6, to end the day so it's kind of like a reward. I’ll bring in my iPad and then I read or I watch clips of things, occasionally even chat while I'm in there. Or sometimes I'll put on my headphones or turn on some music, Spotify or listen to my playlist. Emily teases me about how much time I spend in the bath

What's the best piece of advice you could share with someone who's considering making the leap to working independently?

I think you really have to consider how you work in and what benefits your work flow. It’s important to take control of your schedule and have boundaries. Being confident enough to know what's best for yourself is really, really important. And once you do that, I think your work will speak for itself. If people know they can count on you to get the work done, they're generally less apt to nag you.

Do you have any goals for the next year or so?

I’m hoping to get back to the long-term steady work that I had established prior to the pandemic. I have this model in my head for freelancing that I should always have three sources of steady income as a freelancer, where I'm on retainer or it feels like the work is going to come in all the time. And working on a variety of projects that really interest me. It’s interesting but sometimes the writing that I do on Facebook or Instagram gets me work. So yeah, I don't know where work is going to come from it. I’m just grateful and don’t question it too much