It is predicted that 50% of the work force will be remote in the next 10 years. With the change in technology, it’s easier to bring your work home or across the world. You’re able to take conference calls, communicate through Slack and manage team tasks through Trello or Asana. With the flexibility in today’s technology, there’s endless possibilities on where you can be and how you work.
Traveling the World
It’s such a magical thing to be able to wake up each morning in a new and exciting place. Never having to be anchored down to one city for too long. One of my favorite experiences was backpacking Europe while managing a team of editors. All I needed was my laptop and a hard drive.
I typically spent my mornings, down times and occasional evenings reviewing and editing videos. There is a large shift in giving team members the autonomy to complete tasks rather than just drive the hours worked. This increases productivity and the employee’s overall satisfaction with their work.
Flexibility to Work From Home
If you’re a parent to young children, it can seem impossible to juggle both work and parenting. Waking up early as the kids rise all the way to putting them to bed takes a lot of effort and time. Add in a full time job and you’ll find yourself debating back and forth between staying at home or hiring childcare.
The ability to work remotely lets you ease the transition from parenting to work. You get flexibility for scheduling appointments and taking the kids to school. This isn’t a full solution though as it is a difficult task to transition between two extremely different tasks. Finding the space and time to work can also be difficult, as seen with this viral video of a dad on a BBC call when his two kids crash the interview.
No Commute Times
When you’re able to work when and where you want, you end up saving a lot of time. You can choose when you want to leave to work or take meetings which means you don’t have to compete with everyone else to get to work by 8am. I’ve broken my days up to meeting days and work days. This means that the extra time it takes to get ready for the day is confined to specific days of the week. Although it may seem only a couple of days a week, it can add up to a lot of lost time especially if you’re already juggling a busy schedule.
Deliberate About Your Community
As mentioned previous articles, working from home can often times be very lonely. As a remote worker, you’ll have to be deliberate about creating your community. Coworking spaces are a great alternative. You tend to be more productive and can choose to be social whenever you want. It can be hard to make the transition to working at home or getting back in the workplace. Coworking spaces let you take it at your own pace.
