What I've Learned About Remote Work

Insights from (almost) 5 years of working from home

True Prosperity

If you seek out remote companies, there's no need to live in San Francisco (or other tech hub) to work at interesting places or work with smart people. Not to say you shouldn't live in those places, but you don't have to. As a husband and father with 3 young kids, there's no way we'd be able to have a decent lifestyle with tech-hub cost of living, but the house/community/lifestyle I need want are well within reach when I can choose where I live.

True Diversity

Along the same lines, when you can hire from anywhere, you're getting people from anywhere as well. There's a broader spectrum of personality types, lifestyles, backgrounds, political leanings, belief systems, hobbies, etc when you're hiring outside merely the major cities on either coast. I've found this a breath of fresh air at Chromatic, where I have colleagues that love the city life, suburbanites like myself, and country-dwellers.

True Flexibility

Workplaces may advertise flexibility, but remote work is flexibility to the extreme. And not just flexibility with working hours -- the flexibility lets me optimize for when I have energy.

Burnt-out on a Friday and want to ride your bike or play with a kid? Go for it! Wake up at 6 AM and can't sleep because you want to get something done? Roll out of bed and get cracking!

To Thrive, You Must Be Intentional About It

There's a principle an ecclesiastical leader shared with me when I was in college -- that it's generally better to be happily married than happily single, but generally worse to be unhappily married than unhappily single.

Remote work is like that. It can either be worse than bad in-person work, or better than good in-person work. Remote work has a crazy high ceiling, but also can end up isolating, demoralizing, and career-killing.

Thus you have to be intentional about a few things, particularly:

Intentional about Community

With no physical office and no coworkers nearby, it can be hard to have a sense of belonging. Moreover, it can be hard to feel that you are contributing to society when the contributions you're making are done virtually, from a virtual place.

Benefits matter more. Because things like gym, community service, etc are not going to come naturally from an onsite office, so you have to go out and seek out those things.

Intentional about Health

I've found working from home to be very good for my physical health -- the flexibility naturally leads to more walks, regular gym time, etc for me. For my mental health, however, I've had to be intentional for remote work to, well, work. I'd be dishonest if I said that remote work has helped my mental health. But I still think the upsides make it worth it, as long as I'm intentional about getting out of the house, being totally away from kids during working hours (so I'm excited to see them when I'm done), involving myself in the community, and taking advantage of being able to work away from home.