How remote work changed my life

How remote work changed my life(justinjackson.ca)

37 points by amplification 12 years ago | 16 comments

Great 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.)

amplification 12 years ago | |

I can identify with that completely.

The commute just killed me - added so much stress and load. It affected me at work (I'd come into the office feeling burnt out), and it affected me at home (I'd often arrive home deflated).

AH4oFVbPT4f8 12 years ago | | |

Is it the commute or the interruptions at work? I find that my commute is only 22km on 2 roads which takes about 35 minutes to drive, but it's the constant interruptions that slow me down so much. Working remotely frees me from those allowing me more time to concentration on the current task or project.

jason_wang 12 years ago |

5 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.

amplification 12 years ago | |

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.

jason_wang 12 years ago | | |

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.

ssharp 12 years ago |

I 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.

amplification 12 years ago | |

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...

famousactress 12 years ago | |

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]

dmm 12 years ago | |

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.

ssharp 12 years ago | | |

I did say it wasn't a "great" way to spend time. Lots of shades between that and "soul sucking".

hcarvalhoalves 12 years ago |

I've started working remotely and I've never achieved so much work as in the past two months. Being ahead of schedule also opened up some hours to work on personal projects, which is great.

Previously, I would endure on a 4-hour daily commute by bus/metro, work on a noisy office, and for a lower pay to boot. No way I go back to that life.

Segmentation 12 years ago |

Question about incomes and San Francisco start ups that offer full-time remote work:

If X programmer would make 100k/yr working at your location in San Francisco, does X programmer make 100k/yr if they are full-time remote in another city?

nolite 12 years ago | |

Depends on what you negotiate, of course

jk211e 12 years ago |

nice 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.