Live where you're happy, not where society tells you: Thoughts from 7 years of remote work

As I write this, I'm in my home office listening to the birds singing from the trees in my back yard. I've just finished my morning "commute"—making a fresh cup of coffee and walking one of my dogs through my highly-walkable town. This is my daily routine, and it's only possible because I work from home.

COVID-19 was not a pleasant thing to live through, without a doubt. However, it was good for causing a massive percentage of knowledge workers (and some percentage of other workers—including my wife—at least for a little while) to undertake a massive, joint experiment: remote work.

And while we're now several years past some companies' return-to-office mandates, studies show that the number of professionals who work from home is only growing:

I've noticed that personally over the last several years, as—anecdotally speaking—90% of the new neighbors I've met during my twice daily walks moved here from out of state to find a better quality of life.

In a previous post, I mentioned that we actually moved to Upstate New York over 7 years ago for similar reasons. Both my wife's and my families live in the northeast US, and we were tired of taking 2+ weeks of time off every year to visit family (and taking actual vacations over long weekends). We chose to flip the script, and we couldn't be happier!

Since I've been remote for longer than most, I wanted to share more detailed thoughts about why it was right for us (and why it might be for you too!).

My work is high-impact but not critically urgent

As I wrote in my job search post, I fit best in a position at a cybersecurity software vendor where I have a high-impact, high-visibility technical leadership role that works cross-functionally with other teams to drive the creation of cutting-edge technology. That means that while I'm expected to produce significant technical breakthroughs and novel capabilities, my work isn't to-the-minute critical. If I were in a different part of security where I had to coordinate quickly with a variety of stakeholders and potentially huddle in the same room—such as in the case of a security incident—I'd feel much less effective being away from others.

My industry is geographically dispersed

It's true that for some parts of tech and other professional work, there's a massive incentive to living in particular places. Silicon Valley in general has been like this for decades for software engineers looking to get into the ground floor of software startups, and it—based on the dearth of remote roles available—seems to be true again for AI.

Cybersecurity, on the other hand, doesn't really have a geographical center. Sure, there are pockets in every big city around the world, and there are some places (Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., Israel) known for producing a lot of the most successful companies, but on average these companies seem to "get it" when it comes to remote work.

I'm way more productive (and happy!) working from home

Working from home can offer a smorgasbord of distractions—doing chores, running errands, watching TV in the background, and beyond. If you aren't able to stay focused, it's incredibly easy to slack off and underperform.

I'm extremely self-driven, so my ability to tune out distractions, get into a flow state, and stay focused on whatever I'm doing is one of my greatest strengths. Over my remote career, I've (both implicitly and explicitly) been told that I outperform teams of people, and I hold my "work smarter, intentionally, and with more focus" mantra very dear.

But beyond productivity, I'm also far happier as a remote worker! Some of the things I really appreciate are:

• I can spend more time in a city and region that aligns with my needs.
• I'm able to maintain closer relationships with family members who were previously far away.
• I'm able to use geographical and professional arbitrage to make a much better income in my city than if I were only able to hold a local job (and be subject to a much smaller pool of high-paying positions).
• Since I'm not driving during rush hour, I'm able to help roads stay less congested and be less at risk of dying in a car accident.
• I get to cook dinner for my wife most nights!

I'm good at setting availability expectations

I think it's critical to make sure that others know what to expect from me at any time (and, whenever possible, to make that categorically true instead of ad hoc). When that's missing—whether you're a remote worker or not—I often see people's schedules and priorities begin to look like Swiss cheese. Swiss cheese isn't good for hard work.

To make sure that people know what to expect from me, I do the following:

• I block off chunks of my schedule for "deep work" so that I have time to accomplish high-importance, focused work without people being able to schedule meetings.
• I make sure that people know that if they need me urgently, they should call my phone (and that if it's not urgent, I'll get back to them later that or the next day).
• When I'm a go-to person for questions from many people, I set office hours once or twice a week where I'll be explicitly available for important but not urgent requests.

Wrapping it Up

At this point in my career, it would take something extraordinary to make me consider a non-remote position. The personal benefits far outweigh any possible professional limitations, and I only see the remote work trend growing in coming years. That said, I think there's still great benefit to having occasional in-person meetings, off-sites, and other scenarios where getting every dimension of an experience can't (yet?) be replicated online. I've also experienced events (such as meetings) with multiple remote and in-office participants that are "kludgey" at best, which I think is a problem that takes intentionality to solve.

If you are planning to work remotely, though, make sure that you invest in making your space as good as any office you've ever had. For me, that means:

• a dedicated room (with a door!) for my office
• noise-cancelling headphones for deep work and promoting flow state
• a sit-stand desk
• different sources of light to adjust brightness and focus
• a high-quality and easy-to-use microphone for clear meetings