How remote work changed my life
justinjackson.ca
How remote work changed my life
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Re: How remote work changed my life
#2Great review/post.
Remote work is the way of the future. A recent study from of IBM employees showed that if employees have a modest commute then they only need to work 38 hours/week before they start to have work/life balance issues.
If employees work for a company that allows them to telecommute, they can work almost 60 hours per week before running in to work/life balance issues. That's a big deal.
(That's not to say you should put in 60 hour weeks if you can help it, but it highlights the negative effects a commute has on people and their happiness in life.)
Re: How remote work changed my life
#35 years ago I had an opportunity to work from home for 6 months and it drove me nuts! I guess I'm built in a way that I thrive on human-to-human interaction. Limiting myself to just digital communication actually made me sad.
Company should optimize for happiness. So for people like me, have an office. For people who thrive on working remotely, it should do everything it can to make them comfortable. I don't think there's a right or wrong approach. Just optimize for your workforce.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#45 years ago I had an opportunity to work from home for 6 months and it drove me nuts! I guess I'm built in a way that I thrive on human-to-human interaction. Limiting myself to just digital communication actually made me sad. Company should optimize for happiness. So for people like me, have an office. For people who thrive on working remotely, it should do everything it can to make them comfortable. I don't think th…
Absolutely. Jason and DHH talk about that quite a bit in the book.
If you read the book, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#5nice post. Having worked remotely, I definitely prefer that to office even if there is a short commute but this took some time. When I initially started working remotely, I was hard to stay on track. But having a separate "work" place did wonders.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#65 years ago I had an opportunity to work from home for 6 months and it drove me nuts! I guess I'm built in a way that I thrive on human-to-human interaction. Limiting myself to just digital communication actually made me sad. Company should optimize for happiness. So for people like me, have an office. For people who thrive on working remotely, it should do everything it can to make them comfortable. I don't think th…
Absolutely. Jason and DHH talk about that quite a bit in the book. If you read the book, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Yeah, if I recall correctly, 37Signals does have an office and a handful of employees do work out of the office. 37Signals clearly knows how to optimize for happiness and efficiency.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#7I don't really relate to the "soul sucking" idea of a commute.
I work about a little over an hour away from my office and work from home several days a week. It's a nice trade-off between being in the office, where interaction happens, and being remote, where remote interaction happens, but also where I can hit substantially higher levels of productivity.
While I could do without my evening commute, I generally ENJOY the morning commute. I have Spotify to dig into albums and discover new music, audiobooks, a lot of podcasts I like, organize my day and think through problems at work. Even on the return home when I want to decompress and NOT think about work, I still have stuff I can listen to and enjoy.
I don't think commuting is any sort of great way to spend time, but "soul-sucking", even in horrible traffic when you're having a bad day and just want to be at home, is a bit dramatic. Inconvenience != soul sucking and such statements remind me of the Louis C.K. bits on American whining.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#8I don't really relate to the "soul sucking" idea of a commute. I work about a little over an hour away from my office and work from home several days a week. It's a nice trade-off between being in the office, where interaction happens, and being remote, where remote interaction happens, but also where I can hit substantially higher levels of productivity. While I could do without my evening commute, I generally ENJOY…
If you lived a mile away from work you could always choose to just drive around in circles for an hour every morning and listen to audiobooks.
Re: How remote work changed my life
#9I don't really relate to the "soul sucking" idea of a commute. I work about a little over an hour away from my office and work from home several days a week. It's a nice trade-off between being in the office, where interaction happens, and being remote, where remote interaction happens, but also where I can hit substantially higher levels of productivity. While I could do without my evening commute, I generally ENJOY…
This probably depends on personality too: I just really hate driving (no matter what). ;)
There is, however, good research that shows the adverse affects of commuting: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...
Re: How remote work changed my life
#10I don't really relate to the "soul sucking" idea of a commute. I work about a little over an hour away from my office and work from home several days a week. It's a nice trade-off between being in the office, where interaction happens, and being remote, where remote interaction happens, but also where I can hit substantially higher levels of productivity. While I could do without my evening commute, I generally ENJOY…
I don't like driving much, which is why I thought the commute at my last gig (a 40 minute train ride each way) was amazing. It's a really awesome train down the coast of San Diego, half of it within view of the ocean, the other half through some beautiful canyons. You can eat or drink (even beer/alcohol) on the train, there are clean bathrooms, and it runs on time. There's even wifi sometimes. I worked, or read, or cracked a beer with friends on the way home in the evenings.
Then I got a job without a commute at all, and I swear it improved my day to day happiness by like 20-30 percent. I would have not predicted this much difference, but it's really true I think that your commute is way worse (or put another way that losing your commute would be way better) than you think.
[Edit: Oh, and I'm not even counting the other benefits like dropping hundreds of dollars on gas or train tickets, maybe even losing a car payment, or the satisfaction from helping to reduce pollution. I'm only talking about the enormousness of having two extra hours poured back into your day and the additional freedom to work when/where you're most productive]