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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Remote Work After 5 Years of Experience

212 points by maldinii 11y ago

mafro 11y ago
Most of this is just healthy working practice for anyone, regardless of their remote/office status (schedule time for yourself, don't work too much, see people face-to-face etc). Good post overall though!
- maldinii 11y ago
  Yep indeed, my goal here was to tell non-remote workers that is not always sunshine and rainbows :).
chandrew 11y ago
Very valid points. I've been a remote worker for a year so I can understand many points. I haven't tried some things yet (travel) so hearing about it is insightful. - Although my work permits being flexible, I'd rather have a normal person's schedule too! There's just too many real life things to take care of that require normal hours. - After spending a lot of time alone, I have to find a friend to meet up with. I made another remote working friend so we meet up 2 times a week. It's odd but it does feel like there is some sort of pull towards human interaction embedded somewhere. I also enjoy the busy and loud cafe background. - Taxes suck :( They have been very confusing since this is my first year. Still working on them :'(
- nxzero 11y ago
  Agree, getting out and working with friends that work remotely too makes a huge difference, meeting them for lunch, etc.
- tylermac1 11y ago
  Anything particular about taxes that sucks for you? Are you working for yourself or remote for a company? I'm about 5 months into a remote job for a health company and I love it so far.
  - maldinii 11y ago
    Hey, I am a co-founder and employee of a company so while salary stuff is clear, things like dividends + fiscal residence + tax treaty makes you crazy to be short. Just working remotely for a company and being in a specific location all the time is certainly way easier to handle.
djrogers 11y ago
I'm coming up on 17 years of remote working (we used to call it virtual office back in the day), and most of this rings true, however there are some additional considerations when a family is involved. I've found a couple of things to be most helpful as a family man: Set a quitting time. Don't worry about starting your work day, that will happen by itself, but you need to put a good cap on the end of the work day, so you know when to walk away from work. Have a place to work. I have a home office, but it could be a specific desk, room, or beach chair. Wherever it is, try to do your work there when family is around, that way they know you're working. Leave your work laptop at your desk. Get a second laptop, tablet, etc that doesn't have work stuff on it if you're going to use electronic stuff around the family outside work hours. And perhaps most importantly, take advantage of it! I have been able to watch my kids grow up in a way 99% of fathers can't dream of. I take them to dentist appointments, keep an eye on them once in a while when my wife needs to run an errand, and get to see the amazing lego creations they build right away - they don't have to wait till daddy gets home... My wife constantly drops comments like 'it's such a blessing that your job lets you be here for this', and it's true - I wouldn't trade it for the world.
- maldinii 11y ago
  I am sure that having a family will change everything about how I work and I hope it will make even more sense. Thanks for advice!
- nxzero 11y ago
  It's true that a lot of people working remote need a quite place to work, but there's a lot that don't. Your comment about having a second sets of personal devices for personal use reminded me of how given given I do all of my owned IT support that doing backups and having the data encrypted is really important if you're using device in public; lucky I've never had an issue, but I've know people that had a device stolen, stranger spill coffee on it, etc.; worth noting that a backup is worthless if you can't recover it.
- pcglue 11y ago
  What type of work do you do? Webdev, sysadmin or ? It seems remote working is only just becoming mainstream acceptable. How were you able to start doing so 17 years ago? Has it been with the same company or many companies? Are you independent consultant? Sorry for so many questions, I just haven't been able to figure out how to work remotely full-time. The best I've gotten was 1-2 days a week. Appreciate your reply.
Touche 11y ago
Every article about remote work makes it sound harder than it really is, and probably scares a lot of people off. I've been doing it for 3 years now and don't suffer from these problems. There was some initial shock for the first month or so where home = work = home but once I got past that it became easy. Now I wake up, grab my laptop and sit on the couch and work. When someone wants to talk I go to my office, or if I need heads-down time. Otherwise I just live my life. I usually sign off around 5 and take my dog for a walk. I do normal hour-ish long lunches. If I need to mow the grass I go do that, no big deal.
- maldinii 11y ago
  You are true, being a remote worker is not so complicated, the article was written from an expat/nomad + remote worker experience.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Most people just like seeing co-workers, getting away from home, etc. Beyond that, some managers have trust or ego issues that drive them to require their staff to be on-site.
  - eonw 11y ago
    i get the lonely feeling some times, ive been working remotely for the majority of the last 6 years. it can be trying at times.
- scribu 11y ago
  There are two related but different things that people mean by "remote work": a) working from home (but in the same city) - relatively easy to adjust to b) digital nomadism (moving from city to city every few months) - harder
- haidouk 11y ago
  Oh man, I got a puppy 3 months after starting to work from home and it's been a struggle. I would get interrupted so often and she wants constant attention.. I ended up working poorly for many hours. Some nights I end up in bed at 5 or 6 AM because I don't get to do much during the day.. I hope she'll need me less when she gets a bit older.
kbenson 11y ago
Regarding point 6, I wonder how much a decent expat community from your own country, or at a minimum native speakers of your language, might help. For example, I imagine living in Hong Kong might be alienating after a while (I suspect this is because you may feel like you are a member of your own culture less as time goes by, but never quite feel fully integrated into your host culture), but if you have a core group of people with a shared original culture around you, that might go a long way towards staving off feelings of alienation.
- maldinii 11y ago
  This is a quite big problem as well, I have lived for a while in a city with virtually no expat community, which made things even harder. I suspect that living in a more expat-friendly city will make the transition easier, however my point remains, won't be like living the dream.
- sdm 11y ago
  English, an official language, and British culture are still pretty strong in HK though declining. Still, I get your point. I live in China and I while I don't work remotely, I just don't interact with the expat community. It's much easier if you have local friends and co-workers. I can't imagine being here as a remote worker -- China can feel pretty isolating. I just find your reference to HK odd because I go there when I don't want to feel isolated/alienated. HK is an extremely "western culture" place.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    I used HK specifically because I have a friend (one of my my Fiance's best friends from highschool) that moved there a few years ago to marry a HK native. She lives there and works in the family store now. She's noted more than once (but not often) that she's somewhat lonely there, even though there are some people that live in the same building that are Americans, as she feels somewhat disconnected from them (although it sounded like this may have had something to do with them being wives that didn't work). She mentioned that in the store, her humor often falls flat with the other employees, so there is some cultural disconnect there. She is Chinese, speaks the language fluently, and I believe she was born in HK, but she was raised in Northern California, and identifies completely as an American. It's entirely possible this confluence of attributes may cause more problems for her than if she was obviously Caucasian and living in HK.
joeax 11y ago
I've been working at home for 4 years, and I sort of disagree with point #1. Maybe this is good for some people, but part of the high degree of flexibility comes from being able to work different, odds hours. Because of my freedom of working at home I can run to Costco at 10:30, or take my daughter to her soccer practice at 4pm. If I'm trying to wrap up some code, being at home allows me to stay focused past 5, sometimes 7 or 8pm, without the need to get in a car. It's give and take.
- maldinii 11y ago
  You are not really disagreeing :), the point was that a while ago I used to work 16 hours / day or work 2 am - 11am and sleep whole day which was really crazy. Working between 7am - 11pm is quite ok, I agree with all those advantages.
  - joeax 11y ago
    Oh yes agree there. When it get to a point that you are ignoring your family then it's time to set a hard boundary.
coderKen 11y ago
Thanks for sharing this. I just started working remotely and need all the advice I can get.
- sumoboy 11y ago
  I've worked remote for the past 10 years and I'll say treat your workspace as a real office, good chair, monitors, wireless headset, closed door to minimize any noise. Scheduling tasks is absolutely critical because I find your way more efficient and focused without office distractions. I'm easily 2x more efficient vs an office so I have more time with non-work activities. Get a small office or have access to one of those shared space offices to get away at times, don't think that Starbucks and Panera are places to get actual work done. It's easy to over work, so set aside time to learn something new to keep things interesting.
abakker 11y ago
A lot of this rings true for me. I've been working remotely in SF for 5 years, though my company is based in CT. The 3 hour time difference makes things interesting, since I now work 6am to 2pm to be on the clock the same hours as my east coast colleagues. The disadvantage is the 6am start time. The advantage is the 2pm end time, which sometimes slips to 3pm. However, I still keep a very much Office/Personal dichotomy, where outside my working hours I tend to not be working unless there is a specific deadline. The real downsides for me are: 1. The occasional loneliness 2. difficulty in casual collaboration with colleagues 3. the "work hangover" where after finishing work, I don't have adequate physical separation from it (like leaving the office gives you), and sometimes I can waste time after work is over before being able to spin up on something else. The upsides are: 1. Music when I want it, silence when I don't. 2. Cheaper food costs, healthier meals 3. no commute costs 4. more overall time to indulge in hobbies/side projects 5. tax benefit of maintaining a home office. 6. save on dry cleaning, clothing costs 7. can run errands during the day, and always have the 2-5pm block of time while normal companies are still open, and I am free.
- honua 11y ago
  It's interesting to me that you have adjusted your working hours to match your company. I work for a company in London and I would never be able to match their working hours. Is that a requirement from your company, or just something you hold yourself to?
  - abakker 11y ago
    it is a convenience thing - If they need me, I'm up. If I need them, I know when they're available. My role involves some support for other employees, and also some reliance on others. I work in the research/consulting/advisory business, so I'm less independent than many developers.
- op00to 11y ago
  How much tax benefit do you get from deducting your home office? Are you a contract employee? I've run the numbers every year, and I generally don't have enough deductions to justify going through the work.
wambotron 11y ago
This is one person's experience and viewpoint. I've worked remote for the majority of the last 6 years and haven't run into anything like this. Why would you treat working from home any differently than working from the office? I wouldn't work until 8pm in the office, so why would I do it at home? The special scheduling of personal appointments doesn't make sense to me. If you were in the office, you'd tell people "I'll be away from 1-2 today" and that's it. I do the same thing when I'm working from home. Maybe I'm weird because I'm not big on socially hanging with my coworkers, but the face time doesn't bother me at all. We do a lot of video calls, I see them plenty. My work is not my life. I've never had trouble separating work and home life. Working from a room in my house has never changed that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some yard work to do on my lunch break.
solipsism 11y ago
I just want to say, as someone who currently works remotely, the points about travel don't apply to everyone. Some of us don't have to fly around for our jobs, no matter where our base of operations is. The last flight I took was to a conference my company sent me to, which I would have taken even if I worked in-office.
- eonw 11y ago
  i agree with this. i have yet to meet a very productive remote employee that is changing locations frequently. all the travel i do is either for work, or vacation, in which case it would be the same if i were in office.
solipsism 11y ago
Suggested topic change: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Digital Nomadism After 5 Years. A lot of us who work from home but stay put are confused by this article.
- maldinii 11y ago
  I struggled about finding the right title, I don't really consider myself a fully digital nomad either, the article is about remote work, however under my personal circumstances, I am now more an expat than a nomad. Some learnings happened also in different periods of my life, so is really hard to write a title/content that is clear and all the people reading it will identify.
georgehotelling 11y ago
My job for the past 2.5 years has been remote and one thing that I have a problem with is getting out of the house. I (kinda) followed "Invest in yourself" to the point where I have a desk I like with monitors I like and my cozy little spot. It's hard to justify "Get out of the house" when you've built a nice work spot for yourself. Maybe it's because the audience for this is in an urban environment where it's a 5 minute walk to the coffee shop (as opposed to my suburban 10 minute drive) or maybe it's because I'm cheap and know the coffee at home is cheaper than paying "rent" buy buying coffee. I'd really be curious to hear other remote workers' experiences with getting out of the house.
- monort 11y ago
  Slow travel - you will always have a reason to go out.
ErikAugust 11y ago
The biggest thing for me was that programming by yourself is lonely. And this was the case for me even in a coworking space with people I came to know pretty well. Jeff Atwood has written on this: http://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-loneliest-number/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-lonel... I came to the realization that others felt this from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3AAGlG6NqM&feature=youtu.be&t=10m12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3AAGlG6NqM&feature=youtu.be...
selmat 11y ago
I work (as network engineer) from home around 1 year and I am very satisfied. I have project based position and am the only one (within department) who is taking care of specific role. I have global customers so they don't care if I sit here or 500 kilometers over-there. Provided service is still the same. Here are my experiences from last year: 1. I have own workplace with stand-up desk, big screen. 2. I have silence for thinking and creating. 3. In case of lower workload I can work on some side projects or get some home-tasks or child-care. 4. I am out of noisy open-office. 5. Nobody is staring at my screen and asking silly questions what are you reading? What is it? Can you send me a link? 6. I didn't get any open-office illness. 7. I don't have to fight for air-conditioning/heating temperature. 8. I am home from work after 1 second. 9. Since I don't travel to the office I save a huge amount of money 10. I don't feel lack of social contact. I have neighbors at our street, family near to us. I am introvert. Maybe sometime I don't have someone with same technical expertise but never mind. 11. I am living in area with lower cost for living so I am saving money, I have higher quality of life. 12. I don't need afraid that my car will be scratched (as happened a year ago at private parking, of course no camera records, no witness). 13. Sometime it's hard especially if kids are getting insane and make huge shambles. 14. Relationship with your spouse require higher attitude because you are threatened by marine disease. You are together very often without break. I would not change it back to the open-office insane workplace. In regards to blogpost...I can confirm point #6 - third culture kid. After 5 years living abroad I moved back to my domestic country.
dba7dba 11y ago
Not having to put on headphone to listen to music while working is glorious.
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
There's a variety of work-from-home situations. The OP describes a situation of WFH while living in foreign countries, and apparently he's also self-employed. Others (like myself, since 2012) are full time employed and work literally from home. Still others work from local coffee shops or other comfortable hotspots. As a full time employee, and having tricked out my home office with a comfortable chair and good equipment that I paid for myself, WFH is like being at the office, minus the noise and inconvenience. Financially speaking, WFH is a huge win for most of us who aren't lucky enough to be able to walk 10 minutes to the office: - I no longer commute 15-20 hours a week, which to me is worth an extra $20K a year. - I don't have to make lunch, or buy lunch. - I can go running at lunchtime, in fact, just stand up and go out the door, back in 50 minutes, and at some point I'll hop in the shower, at my convenience. - I can time-shift my work; dental, quick shopping trips, running down to the Post Office, etc. become very easy to fit in. - I can time-slice my day, getting my work done while fitting in 5 minutes here and there of practicing the piano, walk out into the woods to clear my head, or reading the news or checking social network sites without feeling self-conscious. - Privacy - Quiet - Lighting as I like it. - Can easily do the laundry. - Easily make a personal call. - Take a "youtube" break now and then, no need for phones. Ditto for having music going, though I'm more of a silence kind of guy. True, you miss the 5-minutes-in-the-hallway kind of interaction that can grease the wheels and answer questions quickly, but phones, chat/texting, Facetime/Skype, screen sharing, and email pretty much cover it. A small price to pay in my opinion.
benzesandbetter 11y ago
Most of this is pretty solid, though not particularly insightful. I disagree with point #1 about working a "normal schedule". I think being able to adapt to work when the mood strikes (or doesn't) is one of the best things about being a digital nomad. Personally, I schedule my times in blocks which are different on different days, and adapt to the needs of clients, team, my current timezone offset, and personal schedule (classes, dinners, etc.). I also move things around as I go, to adjust to things like nice weather to go out, having a slow morning, or being inspired to do something. Note that while I am flexible, I'm also very disciplined about scheduling work time, averaging 75hr weeks. I also disagree with #6. I've certainly experienced being happier in some countries (and cities) than others. I think one of the great things about being a DN, is experiencing daily life (not vacation life) in different countries, and learning where you are the happiest in different areas of your life. Then, unlike a vacationer, who sadly has to return home, a DN has the ability to extend their time in those places. When I think of happiness, I also think of fulfillment which is more granular than just being "happy". There are different areas where you can experience fulfillment: family, friends, hobbies, work, lifestyle. Different locations provide these in differing ratios. In one place, you may be happy that you can be near family, while in that place, you miss surfing. One of the great things about being a DN, is that you don't have to chose only one of these. You can mix them in various intervals. Last year, I spent a lot of time with family and friends in a bunch of different countries, made two trips to Peru, two trips to Japan, and a bunch of time all over Europe and Mexico. I would say I'm happier for it, than if I had been in any one place, even if I spent the whole year in one of my favorite cities. I thought I was going to agree with #3, but agreed less the more I read of his description. To me, it's much more about being around specific selected people that I care about: family, friends, clients, partners... Also beneficial are places where I connect with people based on shared interest. Meeting random people in cafes is nice sometimes, and the universe does throw interesting people into the mix, but for me it's about more than just, "having people around is always better". Of everything here, #8 (Invest in yourself) is the strongest. The risk-adjusted return of informed and ongoing self-investment is phenomenal. (source: Digital Nomad since '06. 10-20 countries/year while running multiple successful service and product businesses)

212 points by maldinii 11y ago

mafro 11y ago

Most of this is just healthy working practice for anyone, regardless of their remote/office status (schedule time for yourself, don't work too much, see people face-to-face etc). Good post overall though!

maldinii 11y ago
Yep indeed, my goal here was to tell non-remote workers that is not always sunshine and rainbows :).

chandrew 11y ago

Very valid points. I've been a remote worker for a year so I can understand many points. I haven't tried some things yet (travel) so hearing about it is insightful. - Although my work permits being flexible, I'd rather have a normal person's schedule too! There's just too many real life things to take care of that require normal hours. - After spending a lot of time alone, I have to find a friend to meet up with. I made another remote working friend so we meet up 2 times a week. It's odd but it does feel like there is some sort of pull towards human interaction embedded somewhere. I also enjoy the busy and loud cafe background. - Taxes suck :( They have been very confusing since this is my first year. Still working on them :'(

nxzero 11y ago
Agree, getting out and working with friends that work remotely too makes a huge difference, meeting them for lunch, etc.
tylermac1 11y ago
Anything particular about taxes that sucks for you? Are you working for yourself or remote for a company? I'm about 5 months into a remote job for a health company and I love it so far.
- maldinii 11y ago
  Hey, I am a co-founder and employee of a company so while salary stuff is clear, things like dividends + fiscal residence + tax treaty makes you crazy to be short. Just working remotely for a company and being in a specific location all the time is certainly way easier to handle.

djrogers 11y ago

I'm coming up on 17 years of remote working (we used to call it virtual office back in the day), and most of this rings true, however there are some additional considerations when a family is involved. I've found a couple of things to be most helpful as a family man: Set a quitting time. Don't worry about starting your work day, that will happen by itself, but you need to put a good cap on the end of the work day, so you know when to walk away from work. Have a place to work. I have a home office, but it could be a specific desk, room, or beach chair. Wherever it is, try to do your work there when family is around, that way they know you're working. Leave your work laptop at your desk. Get a second laptop, tablet, etc that doesn't have work stuff on it if you're going to use electronic stuff around the family outside work hours. And perhaps most importantly, take advantage of it! I have been able to watch my kids grow up in a way 99% of fathers can't dream of. I take them to dentist appointments, keep an eye on them once in a while when my wife needs to run an errand, and get to see the amazing lego creations they build right away - they don't have to wait till daddy gets home... My wife constantly drops comments like 'it's such a blessing that your job lets you be here for this', and it's true - I wouldn't trade it for the world.

maldinii 11y ago
I am sure that having a family will change everything about how I work and I hope it will make even more sense. Thanks for advice!
nxzero 11y ago
It's true that a lot of people working remote need a quite place to work, but there's a lot that don't. Your comment about having a second sets of personal devices for personal use reminded me of how given given I do all of my owned IT support that doing backups and having the data encrypted is really important if you're using device in public; lucky I've never had an issue, but I've know people that had a device stolen, stranger spill coffee on it, etc.; worth noting that a backup is worthless if you can't recover it.
pcglue 11y ago
What type of work do you do? Webdev, sysadmin or ? It seems remote working is only just becoming mainstream acceptable. How were you able to start doing so 17 years ago? Has it been with the same company or many companies? Are you independent consultant? Sorry for so many questions, I just haven't been able to figure out how to work remotely full-time. The best I've gotten was 1-2 days a week. Appreciate your reply.

Touche 11y ago

Every article about remote work makes it sound harder than it really is, and probably scares a lot of people off. I've been doing it for 3 years now and don't suffer from these problems. There was some initial shock for the first month or so where home = work = home but once I got past that it became easy. Now I wake up, grab my laptop and sit on the couch and work. When someone wants to talk I go to my office, or if I need heads-down time. Otherwise I just live my life. I usually sign off around 5 and take my dog for a walk. I do normal hour-ish long lunches. If I need to mow the grass I go do that, no big deal.

maldinii 11y ago
You are true, being a remote worker is not so complicated, the article was written from an expat/nomad + remote worker experience.
nxzero 11y ago
Most people just like seeing co-workers, getting away from home, etc. Beyond that, some managers have trust or ego issues that drive them to require their staff to be on-site.
- eonw 11y ago
  i get the lonely feeling some times, ive been working remotely for the majority of the last 6 years. it can be trying at times.
scribu 11y ago
There are two related but different things that people mean by "remote work": a) working from home (but in the same city) - relatively easy to adjust to b) digital nomadism (moving from city to city every few months) - harder
haidouk 11y ago
Oh man, I got a puppy 3 months after starting to work from home and it's been a struggle. I would get interrupted so often and she wants constant attention.. I ended up working poorly for many hours. Some nights I end up in bed at 5 or 6 AM because I don't get to do much during the day.. I hope she'll need me less when she gets a bit older.

kbenson 11y ago

Regarding point 6, I wonder how much a decent expat community from your own country, or at a minimum native speakers of your language, might help. For example, I imagine living in Hong Kong might be alienating after a while (I suspect this is because you may feel like you are a member of your own culture less as time goes by, but never quite feel fully integrated into your host culture), but if you have a core group of people with a shared original culture around you, that might go a long way towards staving off feelings of alienation.

maldinii 11y ago
This is a quite big problem as well, I have lived for a while in a city with virtually no expat community, which made things even harder. I suspect that living in a more expat-friendly city will make the transition easier, however my point remains, won't be like living the dream.
sdm 11y ago
English, an official language, and British culture are still pretty strong in HK though declining. Still, I get your point. I live in China and I while I don't work remotely, I just don't interact with the expat community. It's much easier if you have local friends and co-workers. I can't imagine being here as a remote worker -- China can feel pretty isolating. I just find your reference to HK odd because I go there when I don't want to feel isolated/alienated. HK is an extremely "western culture" place.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I used HK specifically because I have a friend (one of my my Fiance's best friends from highschool) that moved there a few years ago to marry a HK native. She lives there and works in the family store now. She's noted more than once (but not often) that she's somewhat lonely there, even though there are some people that live in the same building that are Americans, as she feels somewhat disconnected from them (although it sounded like this may have had something to do with them being wives that didn't work). She mentioned that in the store, her humor often falls flat with the other employees, so there is some cultural disconnect there. She is Chinese, speaks the language fluently, and I believe she was born in HK, but she was raised in Northern California, and identifies completely as an American. It's entirely possible this confluence of attributes may cause more problems for her than if she was obviously Caucasian and living in HK.

joeax 11y ago

I've been working at home for 4 years, and I sort of disagree with point #1. Maybe this is good for some people, but part of the high degree of flexibility comes from being able to work different, odds hours. Because of my freedom of working at home I can run to Costco at 10:30, or take my daughter to her soccer practice at 4pm. If I'm trying to wrap up some code, being at home allows me to stay focused past 5, sometimes 7 or 8pm, without the need to get in a car. It's give and take.

maldinii 11y ago
You are not really disagreeing :), the point was that a while ago I used to work 16 hours / day or work 2 am - 11am and sleep whole day which was really crazy. Working between 7am - 11pm is quite ok, I agree with all those advantages.
- joeax 11y ago
  Oh yes agree there. When it get to a point that you are ignoring your family then it's time to set a hard boundary.

coderKen 11y ago

Thanks for sharing this. I just started working remotely and need all the advice I can get.

sumoboy 11y ago
I've worked remote for the past 10 years and I'll say treat your workspace as a real office, good chair, monitors, wireless headset, closed door to minimize any noise. Scheduling tasks is absolutely critical because I find your way more efficient and focused without office distractions. I'm easily 2x more efficient vs an office so I have more time with non-work activities. Get a small office or have access to one of those shared space offices to get away at times, don't think that Starbucks and Panera are places to get actual work done. It's easy to over work, so set aside time to learn something new to keep things interesting.

abakker 11y ago

A lot of this rings true for me. I've been working remotely in SF for 5 years, though my company is based in CT. The 3 hour time difference makes things interesting, since I now work 6am to 2pm to be on the clock the same hours as my east coast colleagues. The disadvantage is the 6am start time. The advantage is the 2pm end time, which sometimes slips to 3pm. However, I still keep a very much Office/Personal dichotomy, where outside my working hours I tend to not be working unless there is a specific deadline. The real downsides for me are: 1. The occasional loneliness 2. difficulty in casual collaboration with colleagues 3. the "work hangover" where after finishing work, I don't have adequate physical separation from it (like leaving the office gives you), and sometimes I can waste time after work is over before being able to spin up on something else. The upsides are: 1. Music when I want it, silence when I don't. 2. Cheaper food costs, healthier meals 3. no commute costs 4. more overall time to indulge in hobbies/side projects 5. tax benefit of maintaining a home office. 6. save on dry cleaning, clothing costs 7. can run errands during the day, and always have the 2-5pm block of time while normal companies are still open, and I am free.

honua 11y ago
It's interesting to me that you have adjusted your working hours to match your company. I work for a company in London and I would never be able to match their working hours. Is that a requirement from your company, or just something you hold yourself to?
- abakker 11y ago
  it is a convenience thing - If they need me, I'm up. If I need them, I know when they're available. My role involves some support for other employees, and also some reliance on others. I work in the research/consulting/advisory business, so I'm less independent than many developers.
op00to 11y ago
How much tax benefit do you get from deducting your home office? Are you a contract employee? I've run the numbers every year, and I generally don't have enough deductions to justify going through the work.

wambotron 11y ago

This is one person's experience and viewpoint. I've worked remote for the majority of the last 6 years and haven't run into anything like this. Why would you treat working from home any differently than working from the office? I wouldn't work until 8pm in the office, so why would I do it at home? The special scheduling of personal appointments doesn't make sense to me. If you were in the office, you'd tell people "I'll be away from 1-2 today" and that's it. I do the same thing when I'm working from home. Maybe I'm weird because I'm not big on socially hanging with my coworkers, but the face time doesn't bother me at all. We do a lot of video calls, I see them plenty. My work is not my life. I've never had trouble separating work and home life. Working from a room in my house has never changed that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some yard work to do on my lunch break.

solipsism 11y ago

I just want to say, as someone who currently works remotely, the points about travel don't apply to everyone. Some of us don't have to fly around for our jobs, no matter where our base of operations is. The last flight I took was to a conference my company sent me to, which I would have taken even if I worked in-office.

eonw 11y ago
i agree with this. i have yet to meet a very productive remote employee that is changing locations frequently. all the travel i do is either for work, or vacation, in which case it would be the same if i were in office.

solipsism 11y ago

Suggested topic change: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Digital Nomadism After 5 Years. A lot of us who work from home but stay put are confused by this article.

maldinii 11y ago
I struggled about finding the right title, I don't really consider myself a fully digital nomad either, the article is about remote work, however under my personal circumstances, I am now more an expat than a nomad. Some learnings happened also in different periods of my life, so is really hard to write a title/content that is clear and all the people reading it will identify.

georgehotelling 11y ago

My job for the past 2.5 years has been remote and one thing that I have a problem with is getting out of the house. I (kinda) followed "Invest in yourself" to the point where I have a desk I like with monitors I like and my cozy little spot. It's hard to justify "Get out of the house" when you've built a nice work spot for yourself. Maybe it's because the audience for this is in an urban environment where it's a 5 minute walk to the coffee shop (as opposed to my suburban 10 minute drive) or maybe it's because I'm cheap and know the coffee at home is cheaper than paying "rent" buy buying coffee. I'd really be curious to hear other remote workers' experiences with getting out of the house.

monort 11y ago
Slow travel - you will always have a reason to go out.

ErikAugust 11y ago

The biggest thing for me was that programming by yourself is lonely. And this was the case for me even in a coworking space with people I came to know pretty well. Jeff Atwood has written on this: http://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-loneliest-number/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-lonel... I came to the realization that others felt this from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3AAGlG6NqM&feature=youtu.be&t=10m12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3AAGlG6NqM&feature=youtu.be...

selmat 11y ago

I work (as network engineer) from home around 1 year and I am very satisfied. I have project based position and am the only one (within department) who is taking care of specific role. I have global customers so they don't care if I sit here or 500 kilometers over-there. Provided service is still the same. Here are my experiences from last year: 1. I have own workplace with stand-up desk, big screen. 2. I have silence for thinking and creating. 3. In case of lower workload I can work on some side projects or get some home-tasks or child-care. 4. I am out of noisy open-office. 5. Nobody is staring at my screen and asking silly questions what are you reading? What is it? Can you send me a link? 6. I didn't get any open-office illness. 7. I don't have to fight for air-conditioning/heating temperature. 8. I am home from work after 1 second. 9. Since I don't travel to the office I save a huge amount of money 10. I don't feel lack of social contact. I have neighbors at our street, family near to us. I am introvert. Maybe sometime I don't have someone with same technical expertise but never mind. 11. I am living in area with lower cost for living so I am saving money, I have higher quality of life. 12. I don't need afraid that my car will be scratched (as happened a year ago at private parking, of course no camera records, no witness). 13. Sometime it's hard especially if kids are getting insane and make huge shambles. 14. Relationship with your spouse require higher attitude because you are threatened by marine disease. You are together very often without break. I would not change it back to the open-office insane workplace. In regards to blogpost...I can confirm point #6 - third culture kid. After 5 years living abroad I moved back to my domestic country.

dba7dba 11y ago

Not having to put on headphone to listen to music while working is glorious.

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

There's a variety of work-from-home situations. The OP describes a situation of WFH while living in foreign countries, and apparently he's also self-employed. Others (like myself, since 2012) are full time employed and work literally from home. Still others work from local coffee shops or other comfortable hotspots. As a full time employee, and having tricked out my home office with a comfortable chair and good equipment that I paid for myself, WFH is like being at the office, minus the noise and inconvenience. Financially speaking, WFH is a huge win for most of us who aren't lucky enough to be able to walk 10 minutes to the office: - I no longer commute 15-20 hours a week, which to me is worth an extra $20K a year. - I don't have to make lunch, or buy lunch. - I can go running at lunchtime, in fact, just stand up and go out the door, back in 50 minutes, and at some point I'll hop in the shower, at my convenience. - I can time-shift my work; dental, quick shopping trips, running down to the Post Office, etc. become very easy to fit in. - I can time-slice my day, getting my work done while fitting in 5 minutes here and there of practicing the piano, walk out into the woods to clear my head, or reading the news or checking social network sites without feeling self-conscious. - Privacy - Quiet - Lighting as I like it. - Can easily do the laundry. - Easily make a personal call. - Take a "youtube" break now and then, no need for phones. Ditto for having music going, though I'm more of a silence kind of guy. True, you miss the 5-minutes-in-the-hallway kind of interaction that can grease the wheels and answer questions quickly, but phones, chat/texting, Facetime/Skype, screen sharing, and email pretty much cover it. A small price to pay in my opinion.

benzesandbetter 11y ago

Most of this is pretty solid, though not particularly insightful. I disagree with point #1 about working a "normal schedule". I think being able to adapt to work when the mood strikes (or doesn't) is one of the best things about being a digital nomad. Personally, I schedule my times in blocks which are different on different days, and adapt to the needs of clients, team, my current timezone offset, and personal schedule (classes, dinners, etc.). I also move things around as I go, to adjust to things like nice weather to go out, having a slow morning, or being inspired to do something. Note that while I am flexible, I'm also very disciplined about scheduling work time, averaging 75hr weeks. I also disagree with #6. I've certainly experienced being happier in some countries (and cities) than others. I think one of the great things about being a DN, is experiencing daily life (not vacation life) in different countries, and learning where you are the happiest in different areas of your life. Then, unlike a vacationer, who sadly has to return home, a DN has the ability to extend their time in those places. When I think of happiness, I also think of fulfillment which is more granular than just being "happy". There are different areas where you can experience fulfillment: family, friends, hobbies, work, lifestyle. Different locations provide these in differing ratios. In one place, you may be happy that you can be near family, while in that place, you miss surfing. One of the great things about being a DN, is that you don't have to chose only one of these. You can mix them in various intervals. Last year, I spent a lot of time with family and friends in a bunch of different countries, made two trips to Peru, two trips to Japan, and a bunch of time all over Europe and Mexico. I would say I'm happier for it, than if I had been in any one place, even if I spent the whole year in one of my favorite cities. I thought I was going to agree with #3, but agreed less the more I read of his description. To me, it's much more about being around specific selected people that I care about: family, friends, clients, partners... Also beneficial are places where I connect with people based on shared interest. Meeting random people in cafes is nice sometimes, and the universe does throw interesting people into the mix, but for me it's about more than just, "having people around is always better". Of everything here, #8 (Invest in yourself) is the strongest. The risk-adjusted return of informed and ongoing self-investment is phenomenal. (source: Digital Nomad since '06. 10-20 countries/year while running multiple successful service and product businesses)