As we’ve all learned, the chances of anyone in tech eventually having to work remotely even part-time are nonzero. Remote working can be challenging, but it’s definitely a skill you can build. And because there’s always the possibility of it being something you need for your career, why not plan for it and start building the skill now?
If you’re not used to working remotely and haven’t developed a system for doing so effectively, know that remote working—whether full-time or occasionally—can definitely be hard on your work and on your career. Frankly, it can also be emotionally draining.
It becomes easy, for example, to lose sight of the yellow line that delineates your personal self from your professional self (see chapter 6). When you’re working from home, it’s a lot harder to create a firm line between work life and home life, which sometimes makes it difficult to put on your office face and show up with all the professionalism you know you should. It can also be easy to work too much. I’ve worked from home for years, and I sometimes run into folks who think it sounds great until I rephrase it as “I sleep at the office.” I’ve learned to maintain that work-life balance by using the time management techniques I discussed in chapter 7.