A Designer, Product Manager, Business Developer and Salesperson walk into a bar and talk about working remotely
Part of the Remote Working Bible — to help distributed teams around the world connect, communicate and create better.
🧐 What is a remote worker?
If you type ‘remote worker’, ‘working remotely’ or ‘digital nomad’ into Google Search, you will to find a flood of images of people dressed in a suit, without shoes, sitting infront of the beach with a laptop.
This is not usually the case.
Here are four different people — a Product Manager, a Business Developer, a Designer and a Salesperson sharing their experiences working remotely and the pros and cons of being a digital nomad.
Pick their brain on what’s important in remote working and how it affects their professional role and personal lifestyle.
👩🏻💻 What is a remote worker?
“A remote worker is someone who relies almost entirely on digital tools to communicate with their co-workers and customers. They set their own schedules and have the freedom and flexibility to work anywhere.” — Kassidy
“A remote worker is someone that doesn’t have an office to go to everyday, it could be from home, a co-working space, a cafe. Basically anywhere with internet access.” — Eddy
“A remote worker is someone who can work anywhere any time.” — Matt
“Somebody who either wants the convenience of living where they want to live or the freedom of travelling anytime. Work isn’t effected by the geographic location of where you are, and the mindset towards that work, should stay the same.” — Michelle
🕺🏼 How does remote working impact your personal life?
“I don’t feel like you need to wake up and jump into the grind i.e. getting up early to shower to jump on the train commute to reach the office before 9am. And then when you finish work at 6pm, you’re tired so you go home and watch 3 hours of television.
Working remotely allows you to operate around your personal peak productivity times, which could be hitting the gym for a few hours in the morning, run errands in the middle of the day, and find time to work in between. You’re able to take back control of your time and life.” — Kassidy
“There’s a very big misalignment and misunderstanding of what remote working is in the eyes of the general public.
Truly working remotely is when you’re completely separated from the team and when you’re alone most of the time.
Team communication, self-motivation and time discipline is key to staying happy.” — Eddy
“As a remote worker you’re able to take your work where you go. There’s a freedom in the way you work, but it’s hard at times because you’re forced to be accountable.
If you are a responsible person in a job you want to do well in, you’ll do you work anyway, regardless of what company you’re in. Being a remote worker pushers you to be more active in managing what you do.” — Michelle
👨🏿💼 How does working remotely compare to a normal “9–5” job?
“You don’t feel like you’re in the rat race or a hampster in the wheel. The usual schedule of getting up, going to work, coming home, can easily burn anyone out. Your time is set to a 9–5 work schedule.
Instead, try setting your own schedule and take control of your own life. Now that I’m travelling around Vietnam as a digital nomad, I may spend two hours in the morning at the museum, then go the local cafe to work for several hours, and then explore the city in the evening.
You’re also able to constantly switch up your experiences depending on how you feel during the week. Your day becomes more enriching and dynamic because you’re doing many different things in a day.
And since you’re not doing a long stretch of hours, it shouldn’t feel like a slug, which allows you to work on the weekends if required.” — Kassidy
“Working in an office is extremely predictable. You rarely need to think about planning your week, month or quarter. It’s full of routine and repetitiveness.
The concept of work hours is changing. No longer are we doing 9-5 work days, which was also my big transition from the corporate to startup world. Working remotely forces you to plan ahead as there is less direction and no rules to follow.
When I first started working at NewCampus, I felt guilty when there was downtime. Later I realised this is the nature of our cyclical business, and it’s okay to do other things to stay sane. I had trouble coping because I came from a very systematic corporate background, 9-7, 9-6. It takes time to change this mindset.” — Matt
🦄 What are the public misconceptions of working remotely?
“When telling friends that you work from home, there are probably two standard responses:
“Oh that’s great, you’re living the dream!” or “Do you even work? Do you even have a job?”
To debunk the first myth, working from home is not as easy or cool as it seems to be. There are many isolation issues one needs to overcome when doing this. As for the second, the difference in working from home than an office, is that you operate on different hours than the traditional 9-5 job.” — Eddy
🌧 How do you stay motivated when working alone?
“As a remote worker, it’s likely that you’ll be working alone or at a co-working space. At the early stage of a company, you may prefer to work from home to save travel costs and membership fees when choosing a co-working space.
To help yourself on self-motivation, plan your calendar and timetable strategically. Each morning, set yourself minor goals (ones you’ll definitely be able to achieve) and moonshot goals (ones that are part of the bigger picture).
It’s easy to work throughout the day alone when you’re setting measurable goals, as you would be levelling up in a game. This will keep you accountable for the rest of the day.
Another strategy is to constantly engage with your team. Setup weekly catchup calls with different people on team to have face-to-face video. Chit chat doesn’t always need to be about work.
At the end of the day, everyone is a social creature. You need to talk to people to work better and function properly as a human being.” — Eddy
“As a remote worker, you should not try to match your timezone with your team, as it will cause burn out. Understand your optimal way of working, and what times of the day are you most efficient.” — Matt
☕️ How do you maximise your day when working remotely?
“When working from home, treat your hours like intermittent fasting. When home alone, it’s hard to be switched-on for six to eight hours straight.
Set yourself breaks (e.g. two hours of work, half an hour of break, or three hours of work, one hour of break). This will help you stay engaged and more productive in your working hours.
It also helps when your team spans across different work hours as you’ll be able to crossover timezones.
For example, I can catchup with our Curriculum Designer from Israel at the middle of the night, as he’s 6 hours behind, or even our Business Developer when she was in the United States, which is a 12 hour time difference.” — Eddy
“Commuting to work takes too much time of the day if you live far. If you take the bus or train to and fro from work each day, that’s two to three hours wasted on the road. Instead, use that time to do more work, or spend it on your hobby.
Three days in the office, and the rest at home is a good balance for me personally. Otherwise, I feel like I’m spending too much time travelling. If the travel is not contributing to your work or personal growth, then cut it from your lifestyle.” — Michelle
“In a sales role, if there are potential customers in the city or the same country, then face-to-face meetings are preferable. However, if it’s someone across the world, Skype calls suffice.
What you should be mindful of is internet connection, so you should plan your days around sales calls to ensure you don’t lose call connectivity. To be more effective in your sales calls, take them when your brain is at its sharpest.
Categorise your day around what’s most important. For example, sales calls are the highest priority, repeatable and mundane tasks such as lead generation come in last. If you have a early morning call, don’t go out for drinks the night prior.” — Matt
🗺 How do you manage working with team members or clients from different timezones?
“At NewCampus, we connect with businesses all over the world. From South Africa to Los Angeles, from Moscow to Singapore. This requires clear communication and careful planning. Tools can help streamline your schedule, is Calendly to setup meetings with people, bookmarks on your website browser to convert timezones, and Skype premium to dial international numbers if the internet is unstable.
Working with different timezones depends on where you move around. For example, if you’re in Asia and you’re connecting with leads on the same timezone, you can chat during the middle of the day. Whereas, when I was in America and I was still dealing with Asian-based companies, then that would mean waking up early at 6am or staying up late at 11pm to jump on a call.
This doesn’t mean you need to stay up all night working until late, but you need to build flexibility into your schedule. You could go from eating dinner with your family, and hop on a Skype call later at night. Or you could wake up early for a call, and then go back to sleep after.” — Kassidy
“I remember doing calls with American customers, being in Shanghai. It was 1am for me, and as much as I tried to stay awake, it was just too hard. Similarly, when I was in Sydney making calls to the U.K., it was waking up extremely early. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.” — Matt
🏂 What advice would you give to new digital nomads and remote workers?
“Working remotely creates fluidity in your lifestyle. You can be walking to dinner, whilst on a Skype business call with someone. Unlike traditional methods of sitting in a conference room to host a call, you could be on the move, and still connect with you contact.
The con is that you need to think carefully and plan out your day i.e. don’t get drunk at the bar if you have a call at 11pm. Or if you have an early meeting at 7am in the morning, you could also go back to sleep after.” — Kassidy
“Moving to a new country isn’t as hard as it were before. New tools such as Airbnb, Ctrip and Uber makes it easy to manage logistics.
When you go to a country for a visa run or a conference, plan ahead and prioritise before hand. Use your calendar to block out time for work and meetings, seeing relatives and friends, and exploring the city.” — Matt
👩🏼🚀 Who we are
NewCampus is a lifelong learning school for people excited by change. We’re a gym membership for learning experiences, with daily classes hosted at a network of accessible colearning spaces. Members learn together, from global entrepreneurs and experts, about emerging business, technology and cultural trends, and consistently building the skills they need to thrive in the changing world.
We are a team of 10 passionate individuals from Australia, the United States, Singapore, China, India and the Philippines. 🌍
Feel free to comment or ask questions, I’ll be writing more often✌️
