For a number of years I had the opportunity to work remotely. It was a wonderful experience that I really miss. There are countless advantages for a company to allow their employees to work remote. And there are so many for the worker too. During my time, I found so many reasons to love it. Here are just a couple of them.
1) Getting Out And Enjoying The Day
When I worked remotely, I’d head to the gym each morning and then get home and start working by 9ish each day. In the summer I’d take a break around noon and head out on a bike ride. In the winter I’d often go for a walk. It was wonderful to get out and enjoy the day. This was a great time to clear my head, reflect, or to focus on solving a problem.
This was a big benefit to working remotely and one I miss dearly.
2) You’ve Got A Real Kitchen
No more heating up leftovers and cold meals. Working from home means you have your own kitchen right there. While I did stop at Cafe Twenty-Eight for lunch and a beer while on my Friday bike ride at times, the rest of the week I cooked each day.
Being able to make food that really fuels you and the little break from the workday were wonderful boosts to my day.
3) Using Your Own Bathroom
It’s a small luxury but being able to use your own bathroom and not having to walk in after a coworker has blown the place up is nice. It’s more comfortable and you aren’t embarrassed at how long you spend or how much you smell the place up. It seems silly but it’s a nice perk of working remote.
4) Coworkers Aren’t Constantly Dropping By Your Office
Coworkers are awesome. The relationship you build with them is one of the best parts of working where ever you are. But they can also impact productivity. When working remote, you get to pick the best place for the task you’re tackling. Need to have your head down and want a quiet environment to do so? Stay in your home office that day and knock it out. Want to be more social, get inspired and interact? Head to a co-working spot to get some face time or FaceTime with your team.
The point is that you get to control what you need to be productive. No more visits at an inopportune time just to shoot the shit. Working remotely gives you more control.
5) Working From Where You Do Your Best Work
Not everyone loves the office life. Some of us get inspired or work best from being other places. For me, that place was most often at home. Music playing on the stereo and the cat napping on the desk. Other days it was sitting at a local park reading something that would inspire ideas for new product enhancements.
Being able to pick the place that was best for me was empowering and something I took great joy in. The freedom to choose and the ability to work from anywhere in the world was amazing. I’d stay a week extra in the places we’d head for conferences and that ability to do my job anywhere really lead to far greater job satisfaction.
Work Where You Work Best
Having the ability to work remotely allows us many things that generally lead to greater happiness and job satisfaction. The opportunity I was given not only gave me more freedom but also created far greater happiness than if I’d been in a traditional office. While some people claim they could never work remotely, because the freedom would make them unable to do any actual work, I still find it difficult at times to work in the more typical office setting now. Hopefully at some point, I’ll have the chance again to work from where I feel that I work best.
