I haven’t been able to personally try or validate much from the book. It’s more that the things in the book make a lot of sense to me, and that I have a good amount of trust in the authors.
That said, there are some things that I do have personal experience with and can contribute my data point. I just started an actual remote job three weeks ago, and before that I’ve spent years as a solo founder of a startup, and autodidacting.
The biggest thing (by far?) I’ve encountered is that it’s important to have an off switch. Working from home, it can be tempting to check in and do a few tasks at 10pm. But when I do that, it makes it hard for my mind to properly “shut off” and relax.
I’ve found cabin fever to be a minor issue when I stay home too much, but never a major one.
I don’t feel like I can get away with slacking off at home. I feel like I’m ultimately just being judged on my output, the same as it is in a physical job. At the end of the day if my output isn’t there, I feel like my job would be at risk.
At the job I’m currently at we do something called donuts where every two weeks we’re paired with someone on the team to have a video chat with to get to know each other, and where talking about work is off-limits. The donut call I had made me feel closer to the people on the call, but I’ve also started to feel closer with the people I’ve been interacting with in general. And it’s not clear to me that feeling closer to people translates to more productivity at all.
Some people on my team aren’t native english speakers and have trouble with writing, but despite that, I don’t think it actually is much of a barrier. It involves a little bit more back and forth, but soon enough the signal comes through. This goes against one of the chapters in Remote. Perhaps being a clear thinker is what is important versus being a clear writer.
I’m a fan of REMOTE: Office Not Required.
Can you say more about which things from that you’ve personally tried, or validated in some way?
I haven’t been able to personally try or validate much from the book. It’s more that the things in the book make a lot of sense to me, and that I have a good amount of trust in the authors.
That said, there are some things that I do have personal experience with and can contribute my data point. I just started an actual remote job three weeks ago, and before that I’ve spent years as a solo founder of a startup, and autodidacting.
The biggest thing (by far?) I’ve encountered is that it’s important to have an off switch. Working from home, it can be tempting to check in and do a few tasks at 10pm. But when I do that, it makes it hard for my mind to properly “shut off” and relax.
I’ve found cabin fever to be a minor issue when I stay home too much, but never a major one.
I don’t feel like I can get away with slacking off at home. I feel like I’m ultimately just being judged on my output, the same as it is in a physical job. At the end of the day if my output isn’t there, I feel like my job would be at risk.
At the job I’m currently at we do something called donuts where every two weeks we’re paired with someone on the team to have a video chat with to get to know each other, and where talking about work is off-limits. The donut call I had made me feel closer to the people on the call, but I’ve also started to feel closer with the people I’ve been interacting with in general. And it’s not clear to me that feeling closer to people translates to more productivity at all.
Some people on my team aren’t native english speakers and have trouble with writing, but despite that, I don’t think it actually is much of a barrier. It involves a little bit more back and forth, but soon enough the signal comes through. This goes against one of the chapters in Remote. Perhaps being a clear thinker is what is important versus being a clear writer.
Thanks!
Fwiw I’d also be interested if you essentially wrote up a mini-book review of REMOTE (maybe editing it into the original answer-comment?)
It’s been a while since I read REMOTE, sorry.