For me, there are two types of remote work. Synchronic and asynchronic remote work. Synchronic remote work is work from different places but in the same time. For example I’m working from 9am to 5pm in Europe time zone. Second one - asynchronic remote work is when you are working from different places and in different times. So, it is possible to don’t have chance to talk with anyone through all day work.
I only have experience in synchronic remote work. So this article will be about my feelings and my thoughts about this kind of remote work.
Day by day work
When I work remotly from my home or open space in most cases work looks like normaly day in office. But in my offce each person in team has separate room and we don’t go to others rooms. One time per day we have meeting (Hangout or Sykpe). And that’s it. Rest of my day it is normal work. I have to do my tasks and I do what I should. When I need to talk with someone I write a message on communicator (Slack or Skype). The most important thing in this kind of work is trust. Trust that each team member does what he/she should to get things done.
My observations:
Less people around my desk, then I can better focus
How many times do you waste your time for funny conversations? How many times someone interrupt you in your work to ask something? How many times you need to go to boring and useless meeting? There are many reasons for break.
I can work from any place from office, from home, from Warsaw or Krakow. It doesn’t matter.
This is very nice I can work from home when I need it. Or I can go to my family and working from theirs house. Or go to another country.
I need to be well organized to plan my work and my communication.
Because time when all team members are on one meeting is very short I need to be prepare to ask necessary questions, to announce most important informations for team. I need to be good organized when you work. Forget about wasting time for nothing. I need to be motivate to work without any supervisor around me. Remember trust. I trust that others team members working and the same have the same for me. They trust that I working also.
I need to document all what I can.
Most of things connected to project happen in different places. I cannot tell everyone everything, so I write documentation. Work flow documentation, change log documentation, task todo documentation, environment set-up documentation and many, many more.
Australia remote work
As I said earlier in remote work I can work from every place in the world. So I decided to spend 6 weeks working remotely from Australia. Sometimes remote work from Australia was very easy. Time went quickly and very productive. But sometimes it was very hard. My team is working in Europe time zone so when I moved to Australia then my work time changed from 9am to 5pm to 6pm to 2am. I decided to work only half time. Big thank you for my team that this was possible. So I worked from 6pm to 10pm. Sometime I was tired after all day but I had work to do. I worked from different places mostly from my bedroom, but also from shopping center, couch in friends living room, hotels or cars. I don’t recommend this last work place specially when you have motion sickness. Some of this places had trouble with Internet connection or didn’t have any. Then I used mobile Internet. Yes I used mobile Internet for work. And the most important sometimes I just would like to have evening just for my self to meet friends and go out.
Even that there was sometime many problems to deal with, this was my best time ever. I woke up at 7am Australian time. I did my exercises and some hobby stuff and then I have 8 hours to explore Australia. After that I used to sit with my computer and worked. This possibility to work remotely allowed me to visit lot of beautiful places. I felt like I was on holiday in some how. If someone will ask me if this is something worth to try I will say YES.
Summary
Remote work give me lot of opportunities. I can work from different places in the world and discover those places like it is impossible in normal work, because I can stay longer and try normal life in this place. You need to remember that this kind of work is not for everyone. You need to be sure that you will be able to focus and do real work. You need to be well organize and be strong in you decision that this is work time.
When you decide that you will be able to work like this, you need to find answer for this questions:
- Is there Internet connection? WiFi?
- Do I have everything what I need on my laptop?
- Is there always access to electricity?
- How much time do I have to work?
- What will I do as my work?
- Where will I be working?
- How organized am I?
- How motivate to work am I?
- What is time zone in my destination?
From my perspective it is great opportunity. I very happy that I could to try. This is it. I hope you like this article. If you have any question please leave them below in comments. See you next time!