Remote working secrets I'll never tell

Here’s a bunch of things about remote work that I’ll never tell you:

1. When you have children, you’ll look at them with “oh my gosh that’s so cute” eyes one minute, and then side eye the very next.
2. I could likely create a podcast that is called “Sounds from my house” and would include episodes entitled “Who knew kids eat ramen so loudly?” and “Sodas are naturally slurpy” and “I know you’re a dog, but for once I wish you would stop viewing those leaves outside as a mortal threat to our existence”
3. I woke up before 5am to “rock my day” and yes I did rock my day, if by rocking my day that means getting all the kids fed and off to school before that 9am meeting. If I’m lucky, I ate too.
4. Yes, actually, I did just put on that dress shirt… and I did just do up the buttons while coming down the stairs.
5. I occasionally stay up late to work. But that’s not because I’m burning the midnight oil or am over-working myself. I do it because nobody else is around and I can actually get work done.
6. I work at my kitchen table. Or downstairs in the basement. Sometimes even in the actual home office. I work wherever I feel is right. I don’t need a single, consistent, routine place to work. You might, but I don’t, and that’s the freedom of working from home.
7. Naps are fine. Just make sure you set an obnoxious timer that will be guaranteed to wake you up.

Everyone is gonna tell you things that make them all sound like they’ve got all this buttoned up, and locked down to a routine. And maybe they do. But they’re the only ones writing about how to do remote work, because all the people that don’t have it all buttoned up aren’t sharing these secrets.

You don’t have to be all buttoned up when it comes to remote work. Many of us that have been working from home for years aren’t. I have good days, better days, awesome days, and sometimes way worse days. That’s no different than life in general.

So while I didn’t tell you all those things above, here’s one thing I will tell you:

You have permission for it all be messy, noisy, last-minute, imperfect, and full of stuff you didn’t even think you’d need to deal with when working from home… and you should not beat yourself up for any of that.