When I was first presented with the opportunity to work remotely I was ecstatic. What could be better than no commute and working from the comfort ...
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Very well written article! I have been working remotely for the past 6 years and found it to be ideal for me due to above mentioned reasons. However, like you said there are ‘rules’ to follow if you want this to work for you. My wife works from home too and our kids come home early afternoon. The most challenging thing I found is to ‘be mentally present’ and work at the same time. I do have dedicated working space and room, but switching context is super costly and harmful to kids and marriage. Hence, recently I have started to go to the office twice or trice a week to lower the impact of me being mentally absent. My only advice to those who is going to make a switch and have family at home, when you work you are not there, it might be better to be physically not there too, this way your relationship with your spouse and kids not deteriorate. Good luck!
Great advice!
Hey there! Do you have any problems with communication while being remote? I feel like one of the challenges I have is that part of my company (the execs, product, etc) is in an office and so a lot of the communication happens there, and doesn't get distributed out to the relevant parties.
I'm lucky to have a company where more than half of the employees work remotely. Because of that, they really value asynchronous communication and documenting everything. But, there are also times when I do miss out on some of the conversations that do happen in the few offices that we have. One way I try to combat that is by staying extremely active on Slack. I like to let the others on my project know what I'm working on each day and see what they're up to as well.
I work at a University and remote working is quite natural for me. Since I do research in signal processing, I have no need of a lab; paper, pen and PC with a connection suffice for most of my needs. Of course, I have teaching period and faculty meetings that require my physical presence, but otherwise I can work at home.
I agree with what you write. I have a small "studio" with my PC and I mostly work in there (although every now and then I feel the need for a more comfortable coach). When I feel the need for a break I go to the kitchen to have a coffee or a fruit, I always have my lunch in the kitchen, I never had the idea of eating at my desk.
I notice that usually I am much productive at home, I really do not know why. It is not that I am constantly interrupted at work or it is a noisy environment or something, but I am able to concentrate more at home. Maybe is it just the familiar environment?
Great thoughts here. I wish my area had a more active group of people who worked remote. I find the schedule piece to be KEY. It's so easy to work a lot when you don't have a commute and feel like you have a lot of time. I try to spend that "commuting time" listening to a podcast and playing with my dog.
Totally agree! It's so nice getting that commuting time back.
I've been working remotely full-time for over 4 years, and I agree with everything you've written. I also have a dog, which I raised while working from home, so I walk him a couple times a day to get myself out of the office. It's a win-win.
Definitely! I have a dog at home as well and love taking a quick break to take her on a walk.
I worked remotely last year for six months. The first three weeks was the same you described. After that, I felt the necessity to talk to someone. As you, I'm introvert. I ended up lefting that company to work in a local one for the same salary.
IMO, 100% remote job is not that good as some people say, but I would like to have another experience since that was my first one.
It's definitely not for everyone and depends on how well the company handles having remote workers.
What was you main motivation to look for a remote job?
Mine would be commute, and the second would be open spaces. I don't like noisy environments, and I don't like isolating myself with huge noise cancelling headphones for the entire day.
Now some colleagues are working from home due to the corona virus problem and we communicate via Skype or slack, of course is different but I wouldn't say there is lack of communication.
I wasn’t specifically looking for a remote job but wasn’t opposed to one either when I was job searching.
This is great!
I'm considering starting to look for a more remote job and I'm sure these tips will come in handy!
Hi Kara, thanks for the interesting article. Can you tell us what websites or services you used to find remote-only jobs?
I found my current job through Twitter, oddly enough! I've searched on We Work Remotely before though and used to check CodePen's job board as well.