Remote Work: the good, the bad, and the ugly

It's been almost a year and a half since I started working remotely.

During that time, I've had wonderful experiences with remote work, and others not so much.

So I decided to write a bit about the pros and cons of working remotely: the good, the bad, the ugly!

I'll keep updating this as more insights come up ;)

Productivity

The Good

Working remotely means it's easier for me to spend long stretches of time focused, uninterrupted, in a state of deep work.

For tasks like development, writing - basically everything that demands my complex problem-solving skills - this is one of the most productive things there is.

The Bad

Sometimes, you don't need introspection. You need to go somewhere, talk to a person, and solve a problem.

In those cases, remote work can get in the way of things moving forward. Especially when you're an agency dealing with clients who don't understand this paradigm yet.

Although in an already-distributed organization it's easier to resolve this kind of situation with a call or a text message, it's not always like that! Even more so when you mix an in-person organization with a remote one - that can cause friction.

Freedom

The Good

For me, this is the essential point of remote work.

The freedom to work in the ways that make me most productive, and happiest, increases my quality of life very significantly.

These "alternative forms of wealth" are worth far more to me today than pure financial compensation.

The Bad

It's not necessarily bad, but freedom demands discipline. It's not always easy to wake up every day and do all the things you need to do, over a long period of time, sometimes with no one to hold you accountable.

Social

The Good

Remote work gives you the chance to be closer to some people, like your family.

The possibility of a mother being able to give her kid attention and work without having to stick to strict schedules and commute all the time, for example.

But, usually, that's not how it goes.

The Bad

Sometimes, human contact does a lot of good. (Sometimes, hehehe).

A relaxed work environment, where you can socialize with people, have good lunches and things like that, makes a big difference.

The main problem with remote / nomad work is loneliness; I felt this quite a bit when I was in Valencia, where it took me a while to build a network and meet cool people.

What saved me over there was a good coworking space. Having a good place to work and meet cool people is really important in this process.

Now, we at Traktor are trying to bring the team together more often so everyone can get to know each other better, and also to create that relaxed work environment, strengthening the bonds between us!