Today marks a whole year since I joined Line26 as a WordPress developer. One of the major benefits of working here is that they would accomodate me working from home on a consistent basis. Considering that I’m travelling so far to work every day, being able to work remotely makes a massive difference to my life. If I were to be considering changing jobs, I would not accept any offer that could not afford me the same flexibilty unless I was working much closer to home.

What remote working means to me:

It means I save about 3 hours of my life each day I work from home.

1.5 hours each way travel is a lot and leaves me with less time and energy to take care of myself and the house. I tend to spend at least half of that sleeping in, and I know how much that sleep helps. Add to that the stuff I can do on a quick break like putting in a load of washing or doing the dishes after lunch and my time saved adds up.

It means I can play sport again.

There’s no way I can leave Fortitude Valley at 5pm and make it to Ormeau for 5:30pm footy training or Oxenford for 5pm cricket training short of chartering a private jet. But a 5-10 minute drive down the road from my house isn’t hard at all. I’m starting to get back in shape again, my problematic body is feeling stronger and I’m feeling healthier in general.

It means I get to focus more on my personal projects.

While I love my job, I have an insatiable urge to create. I have a ton of ideas that I’d like to build and nowhere near enough time to build them all. Working from home means that I can quickly note down ideas that I get, and if I’m struggling for motivation I can take a quick break and work on some of my own projects and get my head in a better space.

Most importantly, it means I can spend more time taking care of my kid.

Kyle might not be my biological child but I still have to all the parenty things like cook his food, wash his clothes, clean up after him, run him around, teach him how to drive and help him through the messy process of growing up. He’s just a kid and some days needs a lot of support. While I’m always just a phone call away, with me working from home, I’m right there when he needs me, and if there’s an emergency I’m there in 5 minutes, not 90+. He’s the most important person in my life and the more I am close to him the better I can take care of him.