Preface

Working remotely will change your life.

It provides a rare opportunity to steer your time and energy to what is important to you. It allows you to avoid or solve modern problems, such as long commutes, workaholism, an unhealthy lifestyle, or not having enough time for those you love. Since it can affect all areas of your life, the stakes are high: if you fail, you can hurt your relationship with your extended family, neighbors, spouse, and employer.

Achieving success and balance while working outside an office is not easy. When I first started working from home, I didn’t understand its potential power. I was just interested in a job where everyone worked four days a week from their home office, and I expected that pulling a folding chair near a desk with a computer would be enough, and everything else in my life and work would stay the same.

But it quickly turned into a disaster: I hated the quiet of being at home all the time, dealing with the sudden noise of my family breaking my concentration, feeling alone all the time, and this unexplained feeling that I was no longer good at my job. I couldn’t focus when I was at work and couldn’t relax when at home after work should have ended. I was miserable.

But a few weeks in, I started to eat lunch everyday with my wife and our newborn. That was amazing. Not having to drive every day gave me at least an extra hour a day. I rode my bike and went for walks and could easily do errands while everyone else was at work. I enjoyed listening to music loudly while working and could wear whatever I wanted. My wife and I liked that I knew to the minute when I would be home from work to help with dinner. I enjoyed working from a coffee shop one day and from home the next. If I needed to curse or do some push-ups to relieve stress, I didn’t worry about how they looked to others. I saw the opportunity.

How could I make this last? If I could separate my work life from my home life, maybe this could be something that I could do for another year. I wouldn’t have to sit in traffic to sit in a cubicle or look forward to taking off my uncomfortable clothes every afternoon. I needed to figure it out.

Why this Book Exists

There are some great remote work resources for managers and companies. They are full of advice on running teams so that you can work from wherever you want. These resources include public company handbooks such as those from Gitlabs[1], Automattic[2], Basecamp[3], etc. They cover many of the trials and tribulations that remote teams encounter.

But they don’t cover what you encounter. What happens when you stop driving, stop seeing coworkers, stop chatting with people at the coffee machine, stop working in public, start staying in your house all day.

We don’t talk about the personal changes that working from where you wish brings because they are deeply personal. As good as the above resources are, they can’t advise you on new realities of your relationship with your spouse, kids, roommates, coworkers, or the potential loneliness. A professional resource isn’t going to coach you through days of non-productive nonsense, constant snacking, and oppressive loneliness. Nobody will say I was inside, without a shower, for three days, and I’m too depressed to work in their status report, even it’s true. It sounds too real, too vulnerable, too weak, too unprofessional.

We will cover those topics and teach you how to work effectively from home. This is all you need to do to be someone who can work at one of those great companies. Or create your own.

Why Should I Read This Book?

If you are sitting there thinking, why should I listen to you? I’ll figure it out myself, that’s fair, so I’ll make my case. I have developed the skills to work from home because I have failed and lost big early. I’ve worked so hard that I’ve physically burned out. I’ve felt lonely, disconnected, been out-of-the-loop, and felt that nothing matters. I’ve seen my productivity suffer, leading to lost contracts and jobs. I’ve had family conflicts and boundary issues.

But I was determined to make it work. After those failures, I’ve stood back up, figured out where I tripped and how I fell, and found the places not to step. After writing a few popular[4] blog[5] posts[6], I invited anyone to ask me questions about working remote work on Twitter, and I have gotten and answered emails every week for the last ten years on this subject. I’ve learned from them and helped them. I’ve read everything I could find about remote work, productivity, and emotional intelligence.

After this, I founded a company that operated remotely, served as an early employee at remote companies, and consulted with individuals and companies as they transition or improve their remote work processes. The stories are fascinating, but the problems are all roughly the same. And the reason that we don’t discuss them with our coworkers, let alone our managers, is because it breaks the silent boundary between work and home. Our struggles remain, never having the chance to be solved.

My experiences as a software consultant in the United States will color this book. My role as a father of four children will also influence some of my viewpoints. Although this book springs from personal experience, I have found a quiet tribe of people from different industries through my time researching and preparing material for this book. Not all the systems and advice come from my own experience but instead come from the collective wisdom of others.

Who Should Read This Book?

There are no exact requirements for this book. You don’t have to be technical, in a specific industry, or at a certain experience level to learn from this book.

This book can help you if any of the following apply:

  • You can do the majority of your job with a computer and phone.
  • You are interested in remote work but aren’t sure how it would change your life or work.
  • You currently work remotely but are struggling to make it work long-term.
  • You want to master the skills to build a remote work career; you never want to drive to another office.

What’s In the Book?

The book covers the personal attitudes, skills, and techniques you will need to work from home effectively long-term.

Chapter 1: A Worthy Life Goal

We learn why working from home, despite its challenges, is worth the effort because it offers such power.

Chapter 2: Clock-In Clock-Out and Chapter 3: Sacred Space

Establishing clear boundaries between your work and your regular life is essential, and we cover how to set time and space boundaries correctly.

Chapter 4: Mindset and Chapter 5: Productivity

For many working alone is a significant challenge, and battling with their minds to get work done can be difficult. We tackle how our mindset can create emotional barriers to being healthy while working from home. While our health drives productivity, many other challenges appear when you work alone, we cover how to establish systems to work consistently from anywhere.

Chapter 6: Communication and Chapter 7: Family Life

Of course, working from home isn’t just an exercise in dealing with ourselves, but also working with our families, coworkers, and communities. Next, we discuss why communication is so challenging for a remote employee. For those of us living with others, especially a spouse and children, we then talk through the challenges of living with others.

Chapter 8: Lifestyle

Finally, we cover what it looks like when we work remotely long-term and think about what we might be missing out on by staying at home and what to do about it. We also cover the unique long-term effects that leaving an office can provide.

Feedback

Feel free to reach out to me with questions, comments, and free cupcakes via the following:

david@davidtate.org

davidtate.org

Continue to next chapter: A Worthy Life Goal