How to Thrive as a Remote Worker Amid Coronavirus Spread

The coronavirus pandemic means millions of office workers around the world may be forced to work from home — many for the first time. If working from home is something new, you may have concerns about how you’re going to cope. Will your creativity go out the window? Will productivity and collaboration suffer? Will you forget how to express empathy? Kevin Roose’s recent NYT article, Sorry, but Working From Home Is Overrated, may have filled you with dread, but I want to present an alternative view as someone who’s flourished as a remote worker for the past two years.

I initially wrote this as a Linkedin article, but have brought it up to date as remote work is being widely discussed at the moment.

There are pros and cons to working from home, but my hope is that after reading this article you’ll see there are enough pros to make the upcoming weeks or months bearable (and perhaps even a little fun).

Pro number 1? I don’t get dressed for work. I mean literally. I wake up at about 7.30am, walk downstairs in my pyjamas, open my laptop and start work. My mornings are normally filled with video calls and catchups with colleagues, all of which I take in my pyjamas (sometimes boxer shorts). My colleagues don’t know this, of course; to them it just looks like I’m wearing regular clothes with a T-shirt.