Six Key Principles for Remote Work Excellence

How to thrive in remote+office hybrid

This post was written with my Remote, Inc. co-author, Robert C. Pozen.

The office is reopening, but you’re more productive working from home.

Splitting your week between home and office sounds great…until it comes to figuring out which days will actually give you the collaboration time you need at work, and the quiet time you need at home.

You’re managing a team that will split the week between work and home — but you need to get everyone in sync and working effectively together.

Welcome to the new hybrid workplace. After a year in which many of us plunged into remote work overnight, we finally have a chance to make thoughtful choices about how to combine remote and office work, and how to make the most of our days at home.

This publication is your guide to this transition. We’re launching it in advance of our forthcoming book, Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work…Wherever You Are, which will be published by Harper Business on April 27. The guidance we provide here covers different territory from what we address in the book, so that you can start improving your remote work life today, and then fortify your approach with the book’s in-depth strategies.

All of this advice starts from six key tenets: principles and practices that shape how we see remote work, and how we will help you improve your remote work life.

1. You are the boss of your own home office. Even if you’re an employee who works remotely for a large organization, you’re the boss in your own remote workplace. Learning to think like a business owner, so that you relate to your employer more like a client you’re aiming to delight, will transform your experience of remote work. This approach is at the heart of Remote, Inc.
2. Yes, you can love working remotely. Transitioning to remote work overnight, the way many people did at the start of the Covid pandemic, led to a lot of patchwork solutions. Now it’s time to level up: to develop a remote work strategy that reflects your own preferences and work style — so that you’re not just surviving, but thriving.
3. Say goodbye to 9 to 5. The conventional office runs on a 9 to 5 workday (or longer!) but there’s no reason that needs to define your experience of working from home. You can get a lot more done when you are freed from the interruptions and distractions of the office, and when you’re working with your own natural energy cycles. You may well be able to get all your work completed in a shorter workday, or to rearrange your schedule in a way that works better for your family, your health and your personal life.
4. Working from home is not the reason you feel isolated, depressed or unproductive. In related news, working remotely during a pandemic is very different from working remotely at a time when you can make dates with friends, co-work at a coffee shop, or mix at-home days with office days. It’s also a lot easier to be productive when you’re not worried about your health or financial security. If you’ve found your remote work experience frustrating or disappointing, consider the possibility that it could be a lot more enjoyable in a post-pandemic world — especially if you’ve developed a more effective remote work strategy.
5. Remote productivity powers workplace productivity. There are productivity strategies that can be particularly helpful when you’re working remotely, but they rest on the fundamental skills that make you a happier and more effective in any professional setting. Taking this opportunity to invest in your skills and tactics as a remote worker will help you work smarter even if you choose to return to the office full-time.
6. Remote work is a learned skill. Just as it took time to settle into you first job and learn the ropes of office life, it takes time to get comfortable working remotely, so that you can be productive and fulfilled. We’re here to help.

We will dig into all six of these tenets in the coming weeks, and help you translate them into nuts-and-bolts practices that will make working from home more enjoyable and more productive. Sign up for our newsletter to get these insights in your inbox.