Today I’m going to show you how to get buy-in from your employer to move abroad and work remotely.
Moving your family and living abroad is an adventure.
But finding (and keeping) a job open to the idea is a key factor to make the move.
Today, I’m going to show you 5 steps to move your family abroad while working remotely.
These are the exact steps I took when moving my family to Ireland in 2021. And I’m executing them right now to move again.
An international move is a large endeavor. You need to solve for:
- Jobs
- Banking
- Housing
- Insurance
- Transport
- Healthcare
By knowing the exact steps (and the sequence) you’ll increase your odds of success.
Today I want to share tips on how to integrate remote work into your life.
While there’s no “right way” to structure your work and life, seeing examples of how others “counter-program” against the 9-5 can inspire you to tweak your schedule to live a happier, more fulfilling life.
I hope this guide inspires you to experiment with 1 or 2 small changes that’ll save you time, money, and make you more productive at work.
Note: Every quarter I publish an update on goals set for the year. You can read my 2022 Q3 update here.
The Research: Segmentors vs. Integrators
My colleague Alison Kaprielian recently introduced me to the concepts of “Segmentors” vs. “Integrators” in the context of remote work:
Today I’ll show you how to banish remote work anxiety. You’ll get more done at work. More importantly, you’ll feel like you’re able to actually switch off when you’re not working.
Working remotely for 9 years has been incredible for my career and life.
For most of that time, I’ve also dealt with low- to mid-level anxiety. Never to the point where it was debilitating, but more like this background noise I’m unable to switch off.
Because I can work anywhere, anytime, it felt like there was always something I could be doing.
I’m going to show you how to build a fantastic remote onboarding experience. This works whether you’re onboarding your first remote freelancer, or you’re looking to refresh your company’s entire onboarding process.
Employees are at their peak motivation during the first few weeks in a new role. They want to make an excellent first impression. Investing in onboarding keeps that motivation and morale high for the long term. This means a happier, more productive team that sticks with you through the highs and lows.
Unfortunately, remote onboarding is still nascent.
There aren’t defined best practices.
At best, companies try to “port over” their IRL onboarding experience but don’t account for working remotely.
Over the last 10+ years, I’ve worked 7 remote work roles. That’s 7 different remote onboardings.
Here are the 6 things that separate good onboarding experiences from poor ones:
Today you’ll learn the exact questions to ask in job interviews, and why to ask them. These are the same questions tech leaders from companies like Slack, Eventbrite, Pinterest, and Atlassian ask. Copy them, win more interviews.
Today I’m sharing 3 frameworks to accelerate through the “messy middle” of your career.
Push through the messy middle quickly and you’ll earn more money, faster, and be happier at your job.
What is the messy middle of your career? It’s the volatile period filled with uncertainty and struggle. As Brian Balfour put it:
Everything is always changing. New roles and functions are always emerging, the underlying knowledge for tech is accelerating, nothing is a linear path. As a result, navigating this part of the journey is chaotic and volatile (source).
This period is critical. The middle makes or breaks a career.
Unfortunately, because there’s no clear narrative arc (hence the “messy”) people rarely talk about it. Or they put too much stock in Steve Jobs’s idea that “you can only connect the dots going backward.” (Arnold was guilty of it, too.)
Instead, here are 3 frameworks to grab the reins of your career and navigate through the messy middle:
- Develop a clear hypothesis for your next role
- Set yourself up for success in the first 90 days (avoid these mistakes)
- Capture upside and limit risk in your career
Let’s jump in.
Today, I’m going to share my favorite tips and tools for working remotely. This list has been refined after:
- After 9 years of remote work
- In 7 different roles
- Across multiple industries
Only 16% of companies are fully-remote businesses[efn_note]https://www.apollotechnical.com/statistics-on-remote-workers/[/efn_note]. Companies will spend the next 20-30 years addressing working remotely challenges. This means it’s our responsibility to create a great remote work experience.
By optimizing how you work remotely, you’ll drive more impact, get promoted faster, and earn more money. Plus, life is just more enjoyable.
The problem is most people treat remote work as working at the office… but at home. It’s not. Instead, they need to rethink every aspect of their work processes, routines, and cadences from a remote-first mindset.
Note: if you’re looking to land your first remote job, check out my article here. And if you’re trying to break into tech, read this first.
7 Tips for Working Remotely (That No One Talks About)
Remote work is a skill. The better your skills, the more successful you’ll be in a remote-first career. Here are 7 tips to improve the skill of working remotely:
Should you set goals?
The problems with goals are well-documented.
- Goals end. When they do, people feel empty. Then they revert to their previous state. Land your dream job? A week later you’re back on LinkedIn. Lose 30 pounds and celebrate with pancakes. Accumulate a million in the bank, and wonder why you’re still not satisfied.
- Goals delay happiness. By setting goals you’re saying, “when I reach that milestone, then I’ll be happy.” Happiness is a state only the future you deserve. The current you? Back to the grindstone.
- Goals incentivize short-term thinking. Goals lead to tunnel vision. You’re tempted to hit that goal – no matter what. So you start cutting corners and juking stats.
There’s a popular line of thinking: instead of goals, we should focus on habits and systems. Habits and systems are better because when done well, they happen automatically. Little or no will power required! Work the system and the system will work for you.
There’s a great Jerry Seinfeld story. It goes like this:
A young, up-and-coming comic name Brad Issac asked Seinfeld for advice.
Seinfeld told him to be a better comic, he needed to create better jokes. The way to create better jokes was to write every day.
“He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.
“‘After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day,’ Seinfeld said. ‘You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.’”
Consistency over intensity
The message: Consistency wins! Consistency over intensity! Don’t burn out, don’t overextend. Keep showing up every day.