My how to start working from home advice is part woowoo part logical…
A mere five years ago, I found an old journal with copious amounts of notes on how to start working from home. I was in Spain on vacation, upset at how short my time there had to be due to working in an office. I was reading The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris and visualizing my future every day on the page.
How can I do this? I thought to myself over and over again. Some posts were brainstorming entries with ideas circled in various bubbles on the page, others were assuring myself I would figure this out, and some were just plain old venting entries about my frustration with location-based work. Whatever your reasons are for wanting to work remotely, here’s what worked for me and my husband.
How to start working from home in 5 steps
Declare it
We’re both big fans of this. The first step to creating anything you want is to acknowledge what that is and declare it. You can declare it on the written page or to a friend. Declare big! This is a great way to put it out there. I believe achieving any goal is part action and part mysterious universal magic. Your intention is the most important thing! And when it is aligned with what you want, I swear the universe shifts things around and conspires with you to get you the thing you want.
Some tips: don’t be afraid to declare big. Don’t be afraid to write it down or speak it– that’s powerful.
Immerse yourself in your vision
My Type A people must be foaming at the mouth. Let me do a random, informal survey I may never know the answer to: how many of you read the second step, saw it wasn’t a tactic, and kept scrolling down to see when I’d finally get to the “how” part? LOL. Please share with me in the comments. It takes one to know one 😉 trust me. I’ve done the same.
Now, this second step is pivotal in my experience in achieving anything I felt was hard: immerse yourself in your vision. Get excited about it. Day dream of the possibilities. So many of my entries were about what I would do with my time in Spain if I could stay longer than two weeks. I would rent an apartment. I would write short stories and blog posts in between remote working! I would have a glass of wine at the little cafe underneath the apartment we were in.
This is not a waste of time, trust me. Getting excited puts a ton of positive momentum in the direction of your dream, which just does something, people. I can’t explain why or how that works– it’s magic, or feels like it at least. If you’re into Abraham Hicks, this makes sense. She is all about the law of attraction and feelings-based manifesting. And if you’re more practical than that, maybe it puts us in a mindset of receiving and then that allows us to approach the how with a different attitude? I don’t know which it is. Maybe both? But do it. Trust me!
Believe it
Haha– another woowoo step. Stick with me. If you do not believe something is possible for you, it won’t be. Life is literally that simple. Life responds to us, and if we’re saying there’s no way, well, there won’t be. So no matter how hard it may be to believe you can work from home (or whatever other big goal you may have), believe it. This step actually takes the longest, in my experience. It’s really hard to rewire our brains to believe something if possible for us if everything we believe, grew up hearing or are currently surrounded by says differently. I’m not asking you to negate reality, but reality never changed by thinking it wouldn’t. You know?
For my non-woo-woo peeps, here’s a quote from a physicist. Albert Einstein famously said:
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Negotiate it
Ahhh, thank god. Finally, a tactic I can actually do. But before I get to these how-to steps, I cannot stress enough that achieving our wildest dreams begins with BEING not DOING. If we are the person we get to be to achieve the thing we want, the doing stuff comes naturally. That makes sense, right? Who do you get to be in order to be the person who works from home? When you come from that place, you’ll figure out what that person does to get it done.
So you’ve got two options if you’re currently employed. If you’re not, skip this and move on to the next.
Negotiation: you can negotiate a remote position if you’ve built trust working where you are. You can always start small. I did. I negotiated at my last full time in-person job a certain amount of remote hours per day (meaning I left the office at 3pm but I acknowledged my role was not done so I would check in via email in case anything came through). I also negotiated several remote work trips. Jaime was presented with the opportunity to go on a work trip, I wanted to join him but knew I’d be alone to explore during the day. So rather than waste PTO, I negotiated to work during those hours and I was free at night to do as I pleased with Jaime.
These are great ways to prove you can get stuff done out of the office and build trust. The main barrier to remote work are old-school employers who think you get more done in an office “supervised.” Now, we all know that’s NOT true LOL. You can be more distracted, bored, or simply on g-chat at the office. I was always demotivated most of the time because I loathed the restrictive environment. It made me less creative and solutions-oriented. It disenchanted me and that affected my work. I became apathetic.
Your next step, and this is one Jaime took, is to have an honest conversation with your employer stating your intentions. In our case, it was to move away. And there is no way to move our family to a different state and work in this office. He was honest about enjoying his work and not wanting to pursue a new role and left it in their hands in a sense. This is a risk, of course. Could they fire him right then and there? Yes. So how your negotiation goes is up to you depending on your circumstance.
My advice: go into the conversation feeling powerful and knowing you are worth keeping. Don’t go in feeling like you’re begging for something. Remember, working remote is STILL working. You’re not asking to be paid to be on vacation. If it helps to provide examples of how well you worked remote before, do it. If it helps to substantiate why that environment would help you work the same or BETTER, bring that up.
Since Covid-19 this is a possibility now more than ever as many companies saw for themselves remote work works AND shaves off the cost of overhead.
Apply for it
Yay, another tactic to DO. Apply for remote jobs! Again, we are in a different landscape now. Covid-19, though super scary and tragic, did open this up. It’s more accessible now than it ever was to seek a remote position. These jobs are everywhere, apply. It’s a numbers game, take your time on the applications and make sure to highlight past remote work and your results.
Ways to stand out for a remote job
Make sure your resume stands out. I used Canva and fashioned my resume to list my career highlights (tangible projects with real results I created, value added due to my work). I find that better than starting with boring stuff like education or how long you worked where.
In my field in particular, a creative layout goes a long way. I’m in a creative industry so my colors and graphics can be more fun. However, if you’re in a traditional field, I still think a fresh template design stands out. Think of all the boring resumes and then, OMG there’s you! What a delight.
This may be a no-brainer, but do research on the place you’re applying for. Know their brand or product or service. And come to the table with ideas (even if they don’t use them, they’ll be impressed you did this).
And that’s it! Trust me, although these seem simple, they do work. These steps secured me remote work and clients. I hope it works for you! Happy hunting.
Ps. If you liked this post, you may like my memior, Embrace That Girl.
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