An Introvert’s Guide to Remote Work
Remote work is a dream scenario for a lot of people, let alone introverts. It’s one level closer to running your own business, you get to choose when to work, wherever you want (not that we need it much). You have the solitude of working without workplace distractions and without the pain of traffic. Of course, it’s all fun and games until reality joins in.
If preparing is your thing, let this guide help you to lessen the bruises and heartaches before you jump in on that beautiful world of remote work.
Introduction
Here’s me: I’m an introvert since birth, living alone in a studio apartment (Though getting married soon, God bless that woman and her blurred vision) and a software engineer by profession, working remotely for the last 2 years. I’ve worked with teams in the East and West Coast with as much as a 15-hour timezone difference. I like running and reading (yes, I’m introvert to the core). I have worked 5 years before I talked myself into working remotely.
Let’s start this guide on the things that will make you fall in love with this setup.
What you’ll love
I’m here to tell you that all those benefits that you hear about remote work are all true:
Work anytime. Having a significant timezone difference, people tend to emphasise the work being done, than the time you spend doing the work. As long as the work gets delivered (excellently, mind you) within the agreed time frame, your teammates won’t care when you actually did it. Waking up so late that you work in the afternoon? Yes, you can do that. Nursing a hangover so skipping over work? Yes, you can do that. Just not feeling it? Yes, you can do that.
Work anywhere. I’ve worked in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and a lot of different coffee shops and bodegas across the Philippines. As long as you are within the bounds of the all-mighty WIFI connection, you can sit down anywhere to do that thing you do. As an introvert, choosing where you work has a huge bonus: you can work without distractions every 5 minutes and can fully focus on the task on hand.
No traffic jams. If there’s anything that everyone in the world can agree to, it’s this one. You save time not getting stuck on the bus for two hours. You save energy you didn’t use for travelling. Need I say more?
Meet friends and family on their schedule. Your flexibility entails that you can meet anyone you like whenever. You will never feel left out and you’ll never need to be edited into a family picture. On the flip side, you can say to anyone that you have work whenever you do not feel like standing up from your couch.
This is definitely enticing. If this was a brochure, those above are what you’ll see in the bold capital letters beside the smiling faces of people holding books and pointing fingers to the horizon. Now, here’s the fine print.
What you need to make it work
Emotional stability. First and foremost, you need a good dose of self-love. Luckily, we introverts have that well in excess. We crave time to recover before we can party with the world again. That said, remote work is a life of isolation, and living inside your head (as we often do), does not help much. Often, you need to fill that social bar with whatever interaction to keep it away from depleting. Before remote work, my teammates keep my heart full. Now, my neighbours know me well and not an Uber ride passes by without a casual chat. The isolation will get to you once or twice a month in the form of “baaaah I need to get out of this room!” but it, too, shall pass.
Routine. The thing you wanted to run a way from the office setting, is actually the same thing that will keep you alive at home. Having a routine ensures that you get your work done with quality, while keeping your body healthy. Initially, the infinity of choice will overwhelm you (“What time should I work? Where? What should I eat?”) but all of that will go away once routine kicks in. Remember, your body will always find a way to settle and build a routine. You just need to make sure it’s the one you want.
Self-discipline. Nobody likes rules, especially those that get you salary deductions (running late for example). Just so happens, those rules that you hate are the ones that gives you structure and removes a lot of the decision-making from your daily life (see Routine). This allows mediocre employees to survive and good employees to thrive, by forcing them to dedicate most of their braincells in doing the actual work, rather than the auxiliary minutiae. All of that will be gone once you start working remotely. The joy of freedom from those wretched rules will be short-lived (maybe 1–2 weeks), once you realise that you will have to decide everything for yourself from that moment forward. On top of that, you have to keep choosing the right action versus the easy one. No coasting here. Remote work requires that you have more self-discipline than you previously had before.
Apart from these things you need to learn to make remote work work, there’s more you have to give up for the freedom of it.
What you’ll miss
Team bonding. On its own, team bonding is hard to produce. Remotely, even harder, when you can’t drink with your buddies or attend their kids’ birthday parties. While the introvert in you believes that you really don’t need much teammate interaction, reality will tell a different story. Team bonding is hard though not impossible, as technology has come a long way in bridging distances. Albeit dedicated effort is needed in doing so.
Casual chats. Since you’re using a resource every time you meet (i.e Zoom, Skype, Slack, what have you), there seems to be an unspoken rule that chats and calls need to be focused toward a goal. You’ll miss elbowing your teammate once in a while for quick conversation or bumping someone across the room while you’re getting water.
What I should have told you at the beginning
In my experience, while you can certainly learn to work remotely, it seems to fit a certain profile.
Travel junkies who need to work. If your the type of introvert that likes basking in the grandeur of nature while yearning to keep the bills paid, this will be your cup of tea. Having breakfast beside the beach before a long day at work will be nothing short of divine.
People with families. Especially toddlers and babies. You won’t be able to work from anywhere but your home, and your working days will be filled with interruptions. Though all of that will be offset by seeing your children grow up. For some, that is well worth the price of admission.
Goal-oriented people. If you want to be an entrepreneur, pursue an MBA, or be a part of the national team, remote work would be heaven-sent. The time saved by working close to your destination or not dealing with traffic at all, allows you to pursue interests of the heart.
If you don’t fit these profiles, sad news is it might not be the best thing for you. Remember, you will be heavily scrutinised for your output, more so than anything else, so winging it will not prove to be fruitful.
Conclusion
Remote work is not just butterflies and roses, even for introverts like us. It has its own share of tribulations albeit a different set than what we’re used to in an office setting. Just remember to plan and prepare when the opportunity arrives, and you will be just fine.
For remote workers, have I missed some key points about working remotely? Leave a comment below. Also, feel free to clap (10x!) if you enjoyed this post!
