Working remotely from abroad

I spent the last month working remotely from abroad, in Melbourne. Basically, my feet were too cold and my vitamin D had plummeted. It was practically medically prescribed. Now that we've got the humble brag (location, not the medical issues) out the way, let’s talk about working from away. One of the reasons I wanted to set up my business was so that I had more control over how I earned money - and that includes deciding when and where I work. You’ve seen the posts from France so surely Australia was just the next logical step… I now have an insight into globally remote teams and the pros and cons of working like this, especially on a time zone that is so far away from the UK. Here is what I learned:

Pros ✅

☀️ non-working hours are spent the sunshine, exercising, on the beach, loving life, topping up vitamin D

🤓 11 hour time difference means having a solid and clear work day with no interruptions from slack, teams, emails, phone calls, WhatsApps allowing full concentration

🕗 time difference can work in your favour by completing work during the day and delivering it for when the client starts their day

👣 warm feet

🏖️ did I mention the beach?

Cons ❎

🔕 the lack of immediate communication can sometimes increase the time it takes to have a complete conversation, which isn’t great for task turnover or collaborative projects

📱 sharing accounts with MFA

🌃 the crossover time is not always great. To combat this, working in the evening a couple of times a week has helped (and this does mean getting to enjoy the sun during the day and work time is just flexible, so not necessarily a con)

🔕 immediacy can be lost for urgent tasks

📚 sometimes you end up having back to back calls for a few hours to cram everyone in

☎️ if you have to make any phone calls to the UK, that can be hard not just regarding time zones, but practicalities of using your phone abroad. Things like DialPad are useful.

Overall, it has worked well for short term and the author can see how it would work for other teams, but it would take a lot of documentation and communication. It wouldn’t necessarily work full time from so far away, but the author has VERY much enjoyed her time here and would absolutely do it again.

Talk to me here about my experience working away!