Numerous studies show that remote workers are happier, healthier and have a better work-life balance. There are also so many invaluable life lessons you learn from remote working.
Remote working improves many hard and soft skills. It helps you develop faster than in a traditional office-based environment, both personally and professionally. It’s not just a better way of life, it’s a better you. Here are 14 invaluable life lessons from remote working.
Professional and Personal Lessons To Learn From Remote Working
For every challenge of remote working there are new skills you will master. Remote working is not a picnic. It’s not sitting at home doing nothing and still getting paid. Among the regularly reported drawbacks are overworking and struggling to unplug after work. Communication is also more challenging, or at least it seems this way at first.
Of course these issues will be greater if you’ve never worked remotely before. Just remember, working in an office also has its many challenges and lessons to learn. You learn new skills over time and these skills then crossover from your professional to personal life.
1. Self Reliance abilities are developed when working from home
In every work environment you hit challenges. There is always something you don’t know how to do, or something you’re not sure about. There will be a work task you don’t quite understand and an idea you want to clarify. In a traditional office setting there are people around you to help. So you swing by a colleague’s desk and ask a question.
One of the key challenges tele-working will present is, “Do you have the skills that you need to be self-reliant?” You will need to learn fast and think on your feet. Studies have shown that when staff start to work from home, they will need to level up their adjustment to a much higher degree of autonomy and independence. (Van Zoonen et al., 2021).
If you are lacking in skills or have a pressing problem and you are not sure where to start, check the internet. Often it only takes 10 minutes on Google to solve the challenge on your own. With the advent of AI (artificial intelligence) tools, with one click or query, solutions may be one click away. For starters, there’s ChatGPT, Claude, GitHub and Copilot.
You might consider visiting the public library or scanning Amazon for the latest books on the subject. Or better yet, reach out to your professional references and professional association in search of colleagues to gain insight and advice. Some professionals, when in a real bind, go to a gig website like Fivver and Freelancer, post their project, set a budget and hire someone to help them. Of course, we would not advocate the outsourcing of individual job tasks for which you presented to your employer as being competent to handle when hired. We are merely presenting options to you when you feel you are in over your head. Outsourcing your remote job tasks can not withstand the scrutiny for the long term.
You could consider posting an anonymous question or search articles posted on Slack, Quora, Linkedin or Reddit. The answers you receive may support your initial hypothesis or give you a burst of self confidence to implement the solution you already have in your mind. In a good team, working virtually should not discourage you from asking for help. However, when colleagues are further away you quickly learn to do more for yourself before requesting help.
Developing this self reliance is also great for your self confidence. Finally, your best option may be to upskill if lack of job skills are what is holding you back to being fully self sufficiency. So, to recap. If you are fearful that you don’t have the job skills to be fully self reliant while telecommuting, seek out these resources:
Resources to build professional independence
- Internet research and forums: Google, Slack, Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) ChatGPT, Claude, GitHub, Gopilot
- Outsourcing platforms: Fivver, Freelancer
- Printed materials: Amazon, Public libraries
- Professional references, professional associations, family and friends
- Upskilling: enroll in courses, take a accredited class or study independently
2. Time management is an acquired job skill when telecommuting
In a traditional office, time is managed in terms of when you arrive and when you leave. Everything you do in between is work, even when you’re checking Facebook or killing time before the earliest acceptable hour to leave. In an office you don’t always need to manage your time, because your very presence indicates it is working time. Effective planning, prioritizing, scheduling, setting milestones, and meeting deadlines are considered paramount skills for the successful teleworker. Engaging in these efficient behaviors for managing one’s time can make the difference between a poor performance review at the end of the year, or a stellar evaluation. Research has continually identified time management as a key success factor for the accomplished remote worker and remote team lead.
Here are a few posts on the subject of scheduling and time management:
- Time management hacks to balance your routine
- Writing a time management action plan for remote teams
- Telecommuters: use time saved from commuting to invest in you
- Time management creates success for remote entrepreneurs
Time management skills are a great lesson from remote working. Stereotypes suggest you have more opportunity to not work, because nobody is looking over you. However, studies show that you are likely to work more, despite having more distractions. How is that possible? Well, remote working is an opportunity to better manage your time.
Suddenly, instead of wasting an hour you’re thinking how can you finish an hour earlier, so you can enjoy an hour doing something far more enjoyable than work. And slowly you learn how to better manage your time, so all the work gets done and you have the extra hour or two for yourself.
3. Productivity job skills helps remote workers retain their status
Let’s be honest – we all have better things to do than work. But we must cultivate the habit of prioritization. If you are on your employer’s clock, you gotta finish your work FIRST. This is the message Elon Musk sent to his staff who had worked from home. Instead of giving his staff time to adjust to the new work norms he established when he purchased Twitter (now X), with a stroke of his pen, he fired many. It is imperative to give an honest day’s work to earn your salary. And then when you are finished with the work day, go do those better things. As you actively seek to work faster you become more efficient, you discover that you have much more free time than before. It’s not just improved time management, it’s a heightened sense of what is important and how you can benefit personally from this new productivity.
As telecommuters become more accustomed to working from home, we report higher levels of productivity when we work at home than when we had to commute to a traditional office workspace (Baudot and Kelly (2020). We are not alone in our perceptions of our increased work output. The large consulting firm, McKinsey surmised, based on their data, about 20% of the total workforce could work 3 to 5 days at home as fully remote or in a hybrid scenario without significantly impacting work, project and job task output (Lund et al., 2020).
Perhaps you are one of the few teleworkers sensing that your work isn’t up to par. Or, the quality of your work may not meet the expectations of your remote team lead or supervisor. If this is the case, here are a few articles with tips and tools to help you maintain top quality work production for which you can be proud.
Here are a few tips and tricks to improve work output:
4. Self motivation trait propels tele-commuters to new career heights
Research has shown staying motivating is considered one of the primary challenges when working from home. Many remote workers initially struggle to switch off. Similarly, many also struggle for motivation. With an office there is a clear distinction – when you lack motivation you can show up, be there in person, and then go home. That is a day’s work even if productivity was zero. So don’t feel too bad if you are not always super productive at home.
Many remote workers worry how they can stay motivated with all the distractions of home? Or they somehow feel it is cheating to roll out of bed and work in pajamas? Remember, you weren’t super productive every day in the office either.
Self motivation doesn’t come overnight, especially if you don’t like your job. But spend 6 – 12 months remote working and you soon learn how to motivate yourself to get things done. This skill develops naturally because you want to maximise the opportunity for a better work-life balance. Life await when you find the motivation to finish the work. And life is a better motivation than anything available in an office.
Don’t forget, this website was created to help job candidates search for remote jobs and once hired, we provide information and resources to help you thrive! See below, articles for self-determination, self-directed learning and more.
Read these tips on how to develop, build and schedule for self-determination, self development and other remote job skills:
- Remote managers and remote team leads: How to keep remote workers motivated
- Motivating WFH staff for high performance
- How to plan and schedule your own professional development when working from home
- Self-directed learning benefits remote workers and remote first employers
- Self discipline reduces helicoptering management of remote employees
5. Task management skills are a necessity when working at home
When your workplace job responsibilities bleeds into you home life, you can easily see how countless tasks need to be completed. All in the same place. And without prioritization– seemingly at the same time.
If you are in a hurry and need self-management tips quick (you have been unbossed), skip to this popular article.
Like feeding the dog, writing an email, watering the plants, completing the latest work campaign, making lunch, a call with your boss, doing the laundry, and another ten things to do home and at work. As home life and work life merge into one you will find strategies to separate and complete tasks.
Organizational and industrial psychologists (I/O psychologists) have found that technology tools aid greatly in helping WFH staff initiate, manage, track and report upon remote job tasks. (Van Zoonen et al., 2021). Fortunately, we’ve curated a list of essential tools and apps to help facilitate task management (see item #3). But another problem may arise. Keeping free of distractions.
Much like maintaining and enforcing strict work and home life boundaries, distractions can be equally challenging. Many remote workers complain about the distractions of home. For example, they’re watering the plants instead of writing an email. But in the course of a day both tasks need to be completed. And while at first it’s hard to differentiate, experienced remote workers are brilliant at completing tasks, not just switching between them.
Here we present several hints and tips to help remote staff minimize distractions:
6. Taking time off is a detail many remote workers overlook but is risky
Sleep, commute, work, commute, live. That’s the schedule five days a week and after 40 years you will be very grateful for every single day off. But just think about all the time that is wasted when you are working (and commuting). While many studies show how new remote workers are struggling to take time off, this is a challenge that can swing to your advantage, as proven by more experienced remote workers.
If you’d like to know more about the value of taking earned vacation and sick leave, read here:
- Taking work vacations are vital to productivity and job satisfaction
- You’re taking huge risks when you forego using earned sick leave and paid time off
Add up all the time you can save by working more productively and you end up with a lot more time off. Take advantage of this time off and you go further from the typical nine to five. For example, it’s not a bad thing to be working at home at 9pm, provided you enjoyed enough time off throughout the day and week.
7. Communication skills are vital to working virtually
Hundreds of millions of people switched to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic. In the last two years, staff working from home have acquired expertise in the use of technology to help us communicate with distributed team members. While we love the freedom and flexibility WFH gives us, we have adapted from the face-to-face, in-office discussions from centralized physical locations to connecting with team members virtually. (McLarnon et al., 2019).
It remains, communicating and interacting with our peers have been two of the biggest complaints. We miss out on impromptu conversations around the coffee machine, or in the office corridor. This could be interpreted as missing out on killing time while getting paid.
Take a look at our posts emphasizing communication skills when working from home:
- Expertise in communication helps you get and keep a remote job
- Managing for effective communication in virtual teams
Efficient communication is a skill you learn from remote working. In an office you can talk waffle around the coffee machine. You chit chat and chat and chat until it’s time to get back to work. Remote working teaches you to communicate precisely – that means being selective about who, what, why and when.
Without face-to-face conversations you need to write more down to relay information – thoughts, questions, ideas, solutions, status, roadblocks, everything. For many remote teams communication is done asynchronously, via chat (e.g. Slack) rather than on a call or in person. These practices helps further sharpen your communication to what is important – ultimately this saves you time and brainpower.
8. Tech skills are the foundation for getting and keeping a remote job
Almost every job requires some tech skills. We live in a tech-savvy world and if you can’t perform basic computer tasks there is a younger generation ready to take your job. Lacking in the most basic technological resources are a thing of the past. As Covid-19 has come and gone, companies now more than ever have made significant investments in technology. Now its up to the individual remote worker to obtain the technical skills necessary to hitch this fast moving train.
When employed to fulfill a remote job role and meet the remote job task requirements, it is a guarantee that you will need to use more tech, with less supervision and more self reliance. What you learn from remote working are the skills needed to quickly adapt to new technology. Being technically literate and competent in the use of advanced technological software and tools are in high demand for remote work. In fact, they are pre-requisites to landing remote work. Studies have identified ‘technology literacy’ to be the #1 (numero uno) personal skills and characteristics sought in a remote job candidate and team leader. Do you feel like your digital skills could be improved upon?
A few articles sharing top technological skills you need to enter the remote job market:
- 20 must have remote job skills for your resume
- The most important digital skills that will allow you to work remote
- Skills you should master to become a successfully remote employee
Your team will implement new programs as everything goes online. It’s not just specific programs you master, but the fundamental ability to pick up a new piece of software and to make it work for you and your team.
9. Organizational skills are a must as an autonomous remote worker
A key concern among remote staff are related to organizational goals and directives flowing from top down. Poor organizational support and communication have been cited throughout the research as critical needs to address. Often when telecommuting and working offsite, remote staff may suffer from unclear guidance and direction. (Van Zoonen and Sivunen, 2021).
This is where our organizational skills come into play. No longer are we forced to report to an staid environment. of micro managers controlling our every move. Corporate cultures replete with strict supervisors employing micro-management tactics whereby somebody organizes for you, whether you like it or not. In any office there is a structure you fit into. It’s different when working virtually. You need to manage and organize with less supervision, including all your tasks and time.
Perhaps at first you don’t start each work day with a clear objective of what you want and need to get done. But you soon will. And after six months of remote working you will have more advanced organizational skills, leading to a greater measure of control over your time and a greater ability to prioritize what is most important. This is a lesson from remote working that positively impacts more than just the work day.
10. Trust and tolerance are gained when working from home
Trust and tolerance are not always in high supply in an office environment. That’s a problem of always being able see your colleagues’ reactions – you know when colleagues are happy, annoyed, tired, impressed and unimpressed with your work. People show their stresses and frustrations nonverbally. These nonverbal cues are sent and received subconsciously. These nonverbal forms of communication to help us understand the context in which a message was sent and to convey the senders true intentions. When telecommuting, we often don’t have the opportunity to take advantage of wealth of information nonverbal expressions provide.
Further, when teleworking we don’t get many chances to share our worries and concerns as often. Conversely, most remote workers are more tolerant of their colleagues because they appreciate how everybody is battling their own set of remote working challenges. You are forced to trust your colleagues to do their job, just as you do yours. And as you begin to enjoy a better work-life balance you are more tolerant of your colleagues who are doing the same. In fact, there is research evidencing greater sense of trust among remote staff and their location independent peers. A study has concluded remote working respondents “reported that their team became more comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable with each other, leaned on each other for support, and trusted each other more than before the switch to remote work.” If you want to read more about building trusting relationships when telecommuting, see below.
Tips for deepening bonds and lasting relationships when teleworking:
- Tips for building trusting working relationships during the return to the office battle
- Tips for remote managers when seeking to build trust among remote team members
11. A more productive work life balance when telecommuting
One of the most celebrated benefits of working from home is a better work to life balance. Improving the balance between work and life is something you can learn and there is a hidden lesson from remote working. Research has shown, remote workers reporting that they are better able and equipped to achieve work life balance without negatively impacting their work performance. (Anderson and Kelliher, 2020).
But they key know is learning how to turn off the internal button that attunes you to work tasks after work hours. Many people around the world have struggled to switch off after switching to remote working. Your kitchen table is your desk and where you eat dinner, so there is a complete blur between your work and personal time, as you cannot associate the place with your identity and time. It’s completely different to turning up at the office, switching into work mode, then switching off when you leave.
But is the best work life balance simply sleep – commute – work – commute – live. Or is working one part of living? Experienced remote workers use this to their advantage. They detach their role from their physical location, so they can live more and work less. Separating home life from work life initially seems to be a big challenge, but it becomes the greatest benefit to working remotely.
12. Professional independence is enhanced when working virtually
Most office environments are blighted by micro management. There is somebody over your shoulder, making sure the small tasks are done, impeding your independence and creativity. One of the main reasons remote workers are proven to be more productive is that they don’t need to battle micro managers and a constant obsession with micro tasks.
Instead you operate on a more macro level and develop an independence that both complements and contributes to your self reliance. As you become more independent you also become more confident, both at work and in your personal life.
Additionally remote working team members have the world at their feet. In addition to having a exercising a greater voice in setting work expectations and goals, they can direct their own career progression at will.
A few blogs sharing how remote work fosters independence and professional freedom:
- Reasons why remote entrepreneurship is better than a job
- The creator economy is a boom for remote workers
- Retirement opens the door to travel and extended career as a digital nomad
- How to set up your remote job freelance gig
13. Staying connected and relevant as a remote worker
In an office it is easy for extroverts to be front and center. Extroverts may not be best at their job, but they are the most visible. This idea of physical presence is an important part of office life. Without a physical presence it can seem difficult to remind your bosses that you’re still a very valuable employee. That’s especially true if you were used to regular face-to-face communication with your bosses.
When telecommuting you need to demonstrate your importance through the work you do, not just a presence in the office. Think of this as a good thing. If you work well you will stay in people’s minds without needing a strong physical presence. You will make yourself important through your output and the outcomes that result from your work, not because you have the loudest mouth.
Studies have shown, remote workers must be intentional in maintaining their professional connections with their work colleagues and other professionals. In this regard, we’ve got a few tips for you to help you stay relevant within your industry while you work at home.
Tips for remote workers to remain relevant and connected while working from home:
- Networking for success when working from home
- Presenting your online brand: Bud Light Case Story
- The shocking science behind video story-telling
14. Reaching your potential can be easier to achieve when working at home
Office environments are restrictive. It’s not only the physical restrictions, but also the mental fatigue and limitations of micro-management. It is a highly stressful environment. Work remotely and you get to set your own boundaries. You have more control. And with this comes a freedom that helps to unleash your potential.
Not only does working remotely allow you to set a schedule that suits your strengths, it gives you the individual skills to develop faster and achieve your goals. When you are more self reliant, more independent and more productive, you can only go further in work and life. If you want to benefit from working remotely and all the lessons that you can learn you will first need a remote job. And if you don’t have a remote job search for one on the world’s leading platform for remote jobs.
