I’m Going Remote..er

Experiments with working remotely for a big company.

I’ve been working remotely full-time for over three-months, and part-time for years. Everyday I still discover new benefits not just for myself, but for the companies I work for.

For one, people are measured around results instead of clocking in & out. It’s obviously still important to be building social connections on Slack and spending the right amount of time “at work”. But there’s days where I’ll start an hour later so I can get a coffee, and days where I’ll want to jump into work at 7am or keep going until well into the night. With the right goals and motivations there’s an impetus to just get work done that matters.

To have a team that can do that means there’s also a strong sense of trust and initiative in the people you work with, which makes for a lot of “getting shit done”.

But I think there’s still further benefits to being a remote worker that aren’t explored enough.

Professional benefits, like “How can I better understand customers in SE Asia” and “How do we bridge the black-hole of communication between employees in Australia and North America”.

There’s personal benefits to be discovered that focus more on how to best spend the other 16 hours of the day for personal growth and just generally getting the most out of life.

To that end, my partner and I are running a little experiment. We’re moving to SE Asia for a few months (to start) to try and discover some of the benefits and challenges. We’re lucky there’s such a thriving community of nomads that have laid the groundwork.

We’re looking for a chance to travel and experience other cultures while figuring out how remote work can really escape the constraints of a traditional working mentality to become it’s own thing. It’s how I would want to run my company and I’m very grateful to be working for a company that let’s me do this.

If you’re in Vietnam or Thailand from March, or have any tips I’d love to connect.