I speak from a limited experience when it comes to working remotely, but one that is all too familiar to many people who work or study in modern urban environments.
It is a classic tale of waking up early in the morning and then going to the metro station, waiting for the train to arrive, traveling to where you need to be, and then repeating it all over again on the way back. And the further you live from where you need to be, the more you’ll recognize what I’m talking about. After a while, you can’t help but count up all those hours of time just being in transit.
Not only that, but commuting makes it harder to relax rest since a train is not exactly what most people imagine when you think comfort. After a long day, most people are just anxious to get home and spend some time alone or with friends and family.
Working the usual nine to five had, for me, become an almost eleven-hour marathon that I had to run every day.
Working from home has cut down the distance between my home and my “office” from 10 kilometers to the mere 10 steps I need to reach my computer. My office, one day, might be my living room, a cafe the next and, with a bit of forward planning, a different country a week from now. Working from home does come with certain challenges, but challenges that are always interesting, that require you to think outside of the box and that provide a sense of accomplishment when you find a solution.
It’s the little things that make working from home an enjoyable experience for me. Nothing about it is rushed or designed to make you feel uncomfortable.
My reason for working from home is not a noble one, or even a particularly interesting one. It is simply one that makes sense for me, and for anyone else who likes to learn or do new things. I believe that your general attitude towards life has a great impact on its quality, and because of that, I value every single second I’m no longer spending stuck on that train.
The difference in my routine
Now, in the morning, I wake up and take my dog out for a walk. We then go over to a coffee shop for the daily fix and to a bakery to get breakfast, all the while looking at people scrambling on the sidewalk, and listening to the cars on the street honking because someone didn’t step on the gas the millisecond the light turned green.
The same stress-free situation is also true for after work. My buddy and I go out for a walk again, maybe get something to eat, and both of us come back home a little tired, but still motivated to do other things, for which we thankfully have time.
But the timesaving nature of working from home is not necessarily the thing that I appreciate the most. It is, in fact, pulling apart the myth that work can only be done in one specific place, only with the tools that the employer has provided and only while wearing a shirt and tie. I’ve found that the freedom of not having these restrictions makes sense and motivates me in a way I was not expecting.
Now that so many others are getting a taste of working from home, I find it hard to imagine they’ll sacrifice that freedom again so quickly. In fact, I think a lot of them will be leaving their commuting days behind and instead enjoying life a little bit more, just like me.
