[ibz]

5+ years here. Definitely not looking back to go to an office. After doing the DN thing in Asia for a year, I bought a farm house in my home country in Europe and moved over here. Being able to live in nature instead of in a city is an amazing, life changing experience. I often have people over visiting me - either friends or couch surfers. Planning to AirBnB the barn as well, which I converted into a nice big loft. I don't feel much lonely - I can always chat with neighbors - everybody knows everybody here in the village. Or I can drive to the city whenever I feel like. I love the fact that I've never used an alarm clock (except when I need to catch a flight or something). And yet I am always getting up earl and full of energy. I often nap during the day, which I love, and would be hard to do in an office. I sometimes disappear for a couple of hours to do some work in the garden. And I sometimes check on work on weekends. Overall, the flexibility about how you spend your time and where you live is what makes remote work worth it. You also need the discipline though.

[enobrev]

I enjoy similar comforts, but prefer to live in major cities. I've been working remotely for 17 years, and in that time I've lived in Brookyln, Seattle, and now Chicago.

No alarm clocks, ever. No driving unless I need to haul something. No commutes. I refuse to deal with rush-hour. I truly enjoy naps and long lunches and have no set schedule - sometimes I'm up nights, sometimes days.

I could very well move to a farm-house in the country, but I think I'd lose my mind. I truly enjoy city life, as a personal preference. I used to think I wanted to be a "nomad", but it turns out I really enjoy my sit-stand desk with three monitors, a comfortable chair, and everything just how I like it. I'm far more productive than I ever have been while on the road. Instead, I prefer taking long breaks with my wife to travel without any work-related devices.

I'm not always incredibly healthy when it comes to eating, exercise, and extra-curricular activities, but mentally I generally feel I'm in far better shape than most of my peers who deal with the bustle of a daily on-location occupation. I have the utmost respect for their ability to carry on every day. It's just not for me.

[padobson]

Or I can drive to the city whenever I feel like.

Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived.

Clear the highways. Save the planet. Work from home.

[Buttons840]

How can we make this happen? I've been thinking of this as a potential startup idea. What hardware/software can we build that would make companies feel comfortable with many remote workers, and also ensure those remote workers are able to collaborate and work efficiently?

[joncalhoun]

I've been remote for a long time now, but I don't see it working for everyone; I don't even think it would work for a majority of people. Many just lack the communication skills and discipline to make it happen, and there are many roles that can't be done remotely (doctors, janitors, cooks, etc).

Now what would be plausible is if we could get 10-20% of the workforce remote, and thinking about what that looks like. It might mean that at a remote-friendly company, something like 50% of the staff is remote so we need tools to help remote and in-office employees work better together.

It could also mean that parts of traditional organizations get broken into independent services. x.ai and clara labs both are great examples of how part of a traditional assistant's job is handed off to tech, but the same approach could be used to hand work off to remote employees. This would enable companies to hire fewer people for the in-office tasks, but it requires a rethinking of what each role's responsibilities are and might include sharing an assistant amongst a few execs rather than each having their own. These changes could have a big impact, but don't come directly from new technology. Still, I think they are worth considering when we imagine a more remote workforce.

[xtracto]

One reason I have heard people put forward against remote working has been "whiteboard brainstorming" (the absense of). While I think it deffinitely could be an issue, I think in the future Augmented Reality will remove the problem.

[bproven]

The comfort level would be: are you completing your projects on time? Good. You are not? (b/c goofing off at home instead of working) Goodbye! That would do it.

[Buttons840]

That's something employers have been able to do for thousands of years, and yet working remotely remains fairly rare. So I don't agree that "that would do it".

[bproven]

I don't know, I really think at its core it is that simple. I worked remote for 12 years as a developer, sysadmin/devops (multi-hat deal with a small company) with no issues whatsoever. I got my projects done. It does require discipline, good communication skills and a bit of organization, but if you don't have those skills already you are bound to fail in any endeavour IMO. But you are correct it is not common. Probably b/c historically: 1) there is the belief if we can't see you you are screwing around 2) Employers do take a chance that they are getting someone who does not have the skills to thrive in that type of environment (who wants to spend all the resources hiring/training to find out)

EDIT: Also if you have the skills to work remote (or partial remote) you will never want to go back to the old "must be in the office every day" job again ;)

[znpy]

> How can we make this happen?

The main problem here are power distribution and network connectivity.

Mobile data is an unfeasible option as monthly quota would be just too little, and there are some basic requirements in terms of bandwidth and latency (think of video-chatting with colleagues -- for example, during meetings).

[beached_whale]

Don't forget shipping. Trucks move a lot of stuff

[kenko]

> Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived.

What does this even mean? If everyone worked away from the city, there would be no city to drive to. And of course the people in the city, or on the outskirts of the city, don't need to drive—they can take public transit anyway, or bike, or walk, or whatever.

More people living outside the city and driving into it is how the roads get congested, not how they get clear. If they only go into it sometimes rather than all at the same time the roads might be less congested at rush hour, but on the other hand, unless they're all setting up in another, similarly dense city, you're just creating sprawl, and the roads between the little towns and suburbs are probably going to be pretty crowded as people go between them to run errands, meet friends, dine, etc., since by hypothesis everyone's all spread out, and therefore so are all the conveniences, shops, entertainments, etc.

[maxlamb]

I think he's referring to the fact that most traffic jams occur during rush hour, and if everyone worked from home traffic would be much more spread out over the course of the day, instead of the two usual peaks around 7am-9am and 4pm-7pm where travel times double or triple in most big cities.

[ivl]

And spend much less money on commuter infrastructure. If a highway can realistically be cut down to two lanes per direction instead of three, there's less to maintain.

[jliptzin]

I severely doubt that 2 lanes vs 3 will save any significant amount of road maintenance. Once you have to send out the crews anyway that’s probably 90% of the cost.

[bproven]

The bay area would have 50% less traffic, less noise, less pollution, less resource waste building these huge corp complexes...sounds like something that should be implemented now. At minimum incentives to push workforces to 50% of the time at home - when you need to go into the office (critical in-person collab, etc) then you can go...

[52-6F-62]

You just described a large part of my dream lifestyle. Coming from a rural setting, the city life gets a little old after a while. I love the city and love visiting and the convenience of everything, but other opportunities for sport and exercise can be limited. And god do I miss being able to bike 5 minutes and ending up in the countryside. If I can get myself further north or toward the mountains comfortably, I will.

Please do share how you managed all of that—it helps to have insight!

[bonestamp2]

Not OP, but for me... I was working in an office and then my wife was offered a great job in another city. I was going to quit my job when I realized I should at least ask to work remotely first. They said yes!

I've been working remotely for that company for coming up on 10 years now. It's a software consulting company, and I'm the only person who works remotely full time... however many of our clients have employees who work remotely, so it generally works out very well.

When working with people at my company, there was an adjustment... at first I would miss out on a lot of office discussions, but it has been a learning process for them too. My colleagues and I have a lot of mutual respect so it didn't take long before they realized they needed to halt a spontaneous conversion for a moment and loop me in on the phone/skype.

I think you go through different adjustment phases, but I've come to realize I need to treat working at home with great discipline to do it long term. This may not apply to everyone, but I need to maintain a routine, although the flexibility is available if/when I need it, but that sometimes comes at a cost of focus and/or productivity for that day (although I think the much greater focus and productivity that is achieved most days more than makes up for any of these off days). So although flexibility is one of the great perks, I'm not someone who can take advantage of that every day. But, when things come up it's great!

I can help out in my kids classrooms, or show up for their midday school events whenever I want... which is an unbelievable luxury. If we want to beat traffic for a long weekend we can leave the day before and just work from the hotel the next day. This is an amazing treat because then when you're done work, you're already at your vacation destination and you can start to relax or enjoy the place.

Just like the author wrote, I never had a problem with it before but now I find it much more distracting to work in an office. Even if my wife is working from home and I can barely hear her across the house, just having someone around is distracting. It's not a major problem that can't be solved by some noise isolating headphones, but it definitely a change I noticed.

Even though I don't spend any time with them, I know of a few nice people on my street who also work from home if I really needed something. I have also met people on meetup.com who are interested in similar hobbies to mine, and regularly get lunch with the ones who live/work near me and it's surprising how many other people work remotely now too.

[thathappened]

Discipline is key. I coded in college to avoid competing for a retail job. You get in grooves and forget to eat or go out and next thing you know you're nocturnal.

After cramming 2 decades of work in the next one, I burnt out and worked remotely from a cabin in NC. I was a network engineer so fast net hours from a major city and I was king

[criddell]

Is your internet connection fast and reliable?

[ibz]

I've got a satellite connection. Unlimited traffic for 100EUR / month. Much more than I would pay for internet in a city, but hey... And yes, it is reliable and quite fast bandwidth wise. The ping time is not that great though (which means there's always a small delay when you talk to somebody). Has never been an issue though, and I do Google Hangouts every day!

[criddell]

Is your uplink via satellite as well, or is that over a different channel?

And can it stream Netflix?

[ibz]

Yes, also satellite. Here's what I am using: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooway (from a local reseller)

Never understood this Netflix thing. Guess because I'm not into TV series and the movies I watch are likely not there. But I can stream Youtube just fine. If that helps. ^_^

[openfuture]

Have you checked out trustroots? I prefer it to couchsurfing.

[ibz]

Yup, I'm on trustroots as well. Indeed, it looks like a nicer alternative, now that CS is becoming more and more commercial. Not that many people on trustroots yet though.

[jamiegreen]

What do you do, if you don't mind me asking? (I am assuming developer, but interested to learn more specifically your niche/years of experience)

[ibz]

Python. Data processing and such. I like doing pretty much anything that is not UI. Been in the field (programming, that is) for ~15 years. Currently working for a failed startup that got acquired by another startup. :) Did this satisfy your curiosity?

[jamiegreen]

Very interesting, thanks for the answer! :)

[albertzeyer]

Do you have a family? What is the job of your partner? Do you have a school nearby for kids?

This sounds like something which would be hard to do with a family.

[paulddraper]

I assume a spouse would not be employed, or would also work remotely.

And believe it or not, even rural places have schools, at least in the US.

If anything, I think this is more appealing to families, because of the available space.

[thenaturalist]

Mind sharing if/ how it's possible to visit? I'm starting out to work remotely and travel and would come by.

[ibz]

Sure! Email me at hn <at> myusername <dot> me and let's keep in touch! There are very cheap flights from Berlin to here if you're flexible. :) Cheers!

[simonebrunozzi]

Great. Just curious, which country do you live in now?

[anthony_barker]

Same - was thinking of doing the same think in France... but I have heard good things about northern romania

[ibz]

Of course this could be done all over Europe, as cheap farm houses abound. It's more a matter of having the patience to restore the thing. That is a very time and resource consuming task.

[ibz]

SW Romania :)

[allsunny]

help me out, what's DN?

[heartbreak]

Digital Nomad.