The concept of living in the country and working remotely may seem like the ideal life. And as someone who has been doing this for a while, I can attest that it has its benefits. But, with those benefits come a fair share of negative attributes. So, before you quit your job in exchange for a position that allows you to work remotely and sell your home in the suburbs to move out into the middle of nowhere, take a minute to review these pros and cons from someone who has plenty of experience on this topic.
Top Categories of Consideration
After spending thirty years living in the suburbs of Denver raising my children into adulthood working both for others and myself, I decided it was time to get to living my lifelong adult dream of working remotely in an off-grid setting. Turns out that being completely off-grid isn’t what it’s cracked up to be if you are attempting to work remotely. The following categories are the top issues that I have had to deal with as a remote professional, and why I have become gridlocked even while working from home in my quaint country setting.
Work Space
Expenses
Scheduling Issues with Time Zones
Interruptions
Self-Motivation
Always at Home
Connectivity
Work Space – The idea of sitting at the kitchen table or on the sofa in your pajamas typing away or closing that big deal is something that sounds enticing, all the way up to the point where you have been sitting in the same position so long that you can no longer feel your feet or fingers. Or until you have to have that Zoom call and realize everyone on the other end will see the week’s worth of laundry piled in the corner. Besides the physical and esthetic reasons for having a dedicated workspace, there is also the mental health reason for creating a location completely separate from your leisure time area. But I’ll address that in the section about self-motivation.
There’s nothing wrong with having the occasional lounge day where you simply get out of bed, grab your laptop, and plop on the sofa or at the breakfast bar to do a few hours of work. However, for the day-to-day work, there should be a professional workspace that has all of the tools and equipment that you will need to complete the tasks at hand. This promotes efficiency, productivity, and creates a more professional attitude to your work. This concept is along the same lines as the saying that you can hear someone smiling on the other end of the phone line. The energy generated from you is felt on the receiving end of your work and the energy you feel is directly connected to your environment.
Additionally, having a dedicated workspace creates a more organized method of working. It creates a space for entertaining and a space for focusing. Having two spaces keeps paperwork safe from accidental spills from guests visiting your home and leaves table tops and seating areas available for entertainment times without having to hurriedly move work files and documents for people to sit down or surfaces to place cups or dishes when eating. It minimizes the risk of potentially misplacing important documents and lowers your stress in the process.
Self-Motivation – It can be difficult to motivate even on the best of days. So, creating a separate space for work establishes mental boundaries that help when trying to motivate yourself into working. Time boundaries are another technique for self-motivation. Setting specific work hours trains your brain to focus on work during those times and allows you to relax once your work is complete and the work day is over. This can be especially effective for jobs that have a lot of repetitive aspects to them such as bookkeeping, scheduling, or data entry. More creative-based jobs like being a writer, are also positively impacted by creating specific work hours because it eliminates the ability to procrastinate. As a writer and a procrastinator, I can tell you this method works. It keeps you on track for meeting deadlines, as well as forces you to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and even if the work that comes out isn’t your best, it’s work that can be retooled once you have had time to mull it over. Something you won’t have if you don’t sit down and attempt to write.
It’s a mindset. If the environment or schedule tells the mind that you are supposed to be working, then it will focus on work. Just as if it says this is the place or time to relax, the mind will naturally wander to more enjoyable activities.
Interruptions – Interruptions are unavoidable whether you work remotely or in an office setting. In the office, it is phone calls, coworkers looking to chitchat, and system failures that continually pop up to interrupt workflow and concentration. Working remotely has its own variety of interruptions, kids, neighbors, pets, repair people, system failures, and the list goes on. So, working remotely is not the answer to avoiding interruptions. But, learning to manage interruptions is the answer to working efficiently no matter where you work.
As suggested above, setting work hours is a great way to minimize interruptions when working from home. It establishes boundaries for those around you, the spouse, kids, friends who don’t understand your work situation, etc. Create a written schedule of when you are not to be disturbed because even if you are at home where they have easy access to you, you are working and not available to them. Create a definition of importance chart so that it is clear what is considered an emergency and provides those around you with the right to interrupt. This helps because everyone has their own opinion of what constitutes an emergency, and it places everyone on the same page. Those last two solutions also work well in an office environment, for the same reasons that they work when working remotely.
Expenses – Working remotely eliminates certain expenses such as transportation, fuel, an expensive work wardrobe, parking fees, etc. It creates another list of expenses though. The first expense is setting up a workspace which may include office supplies, equipment, furniture, and connectivity like high-speed internet, phone lines, or fax lines. The amount of expense will completely depend on the type of workspace you plan on having and the type of work you will be doing. It’s important to figure out upfront if you will be able to use the connectivity and equipment that you already have or if you will require dedicated service lines and equipment to budget accurately. Remember any expenses that are accrued specifically for work including the percentage of space within your home is a tax write-off, so keep good records.
Always at Home – Even the most reclusive homebody can get cabin fever when they spend too much time at home. To avoid feeling like a caged cat during those hours that you’re supposed to be working, schedule time out doing things. Whether it’s spending an afternoon running errands, going for a picnic in the park to play with your kids or pets, or simply taking a yoga class or working out at the gym, getting out of the house will alleviate the stress associated with staying indoors or in a place of isolation for too long.
Scheduling and Time Zones – Understanding your own schedule and ensuring that others understand it as well are only part of the process. It does no good to set work hours that conflict with the hours of those you will be interacting with. It’s vital to your productivity and sanity to have a proficient understanding of those individuals that you need to work with so that there are sufficient overlap hours to accomplish those tasks that need to be completed together. This saves time in the long run and creates an effective remote work environment for everyone involved.
Technical Aspects
Although writing is something that someone should be able to do from anywhere, sharing that work with the world requires access to civilization and technology. Here are the two main hurdles that I encountered when I started writing remotely.
Connectivity – Spending the past five-plus years working from the road across Southern California, Colorado, Georgia, and Alabama, whether in the Rockies, major cities, or on the plains, my main obstacle has been connectivity. Living in an RV for over a year and a half created a very real firsthand perspective on the infrastructure of technology. Being constantly connected while living in the city does not prepare you for the many regions across the U.S. that have dismal coverage or only one provider for an area. This led me to have to explore alternative options like cell tower-provided internet and satellite internet, which in some of the areas I temporarily lived in were the only options available. Unfortunately, these options are only as good as the number of towers in the location, or the line of sight to the router. Both of which were usually non-existent or limited.
Not having reliable and consistent connectivity not only affected work, and communication, it also affected entertainment options such as being able to watch television or stream music. It was also a safety concern since having no neighbors close by meant having a reliable source of communication was important to getting help should something happen as well as staying informed regarding weather, fires, and other events that might easily impact me directly.
The options I finally had to go with were using old-school technology such as handheld radios, TVs, and VCRs for entertainment, and for internet visiting local diners, restaurants, or coffee shops that provided free WiFi, using computer labs in local libraries, paying for internet by the hour at local business centers, and in the end staying in RV parks that provided full hookups. Connectivity in full hook-up RV parks was only as reliable as the equipment and services provided by the RV park and the number of visitors at any given time staying at the facility. Plus, security was an issue since these were all public internet sources that left me vulnerable to identity theft when doing activities like paying bills online.
The reason I used my time in the RV as an example of the services you will need to consider when living in the country and working remotely is, as I found out, it is for the most part what you can expect when living on acreage or in a small rural community whether it is in the mountains or on the beach or simply on the plains away from social centers.
Required Equipment – The equipment needed varies greatly depending on where you choose to live and the services provided in that region. Typically, you can expect to have some upfront expenses for routers, solar-powered backup equipment, and some sort of off-grid or remote location communication device such as satellite phones, ham radio, or CB equipment, etc. This may not keep you streaming your favorite shows or continually connected online, but it will provide you with a method of communication should you need assistance.
Before choosing your location to work from remotely, do your due diligence when researching the options for online connectivity. Assuming that satellite services such as Hugh’s Net will be the perfect solution may come as a surprise in the long run. I found these services to be extremely slow and buffering a constant issue just to work online and while surfing the internet when doing research.
To confirm the download and upload speeds will be as advertised, take the time to visit the location you want to live and run some speed tests with your cell phone. Take a laptop with you and try using your cell phone as a hotspot if you have this capability to confirm data speeds. In my experience, you can expect the internet provider you choose to be about the same or less as these test results unless the provider is a hardwired service. Also, take into consideration the weather at the time. Bad weather will negatively affect transmission speeds and connectivity in general.
Don’t be afraid to speak to locals regarding internet and cell service options and ask their opinions of the services available. Talk to multiple people so you have a pool of information from which to make a decision. Ask questions like:
1. What do you use your internet for?
2. What provider do you use?
3. Do you have a lot of buffering issues?
4. How expensive is it?
5. How is the Customer Service?
6. Are there other service providers to choose from in the area that they know of?
7. What kind of equipment is required?
8. Do you have reliable cell service?
These are just the basic questions to ask. Customize your list of inquiries to match what your needs will be in order to have feedback that more accurately reflects your long and short-term needs.
Conclusion- Living off-grid or just in the country has its perks, low noise, beautiful views, wildlife, and room to spread your wings to name a few. But unless you do your research and plan ahead the working remotely aspect of living in the country may be more complicated or less fulfilling than you expected; causing you to have to modify your plan or compromise on the location or amount of remote work you are able to do from the location where you choose to live.
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