Web Worker – what works?
Working remotely and mostly freelance certainly has it’s own challenges. Not in the least is the misconception that you will have more “quality” time at home. I have been working remotely on and off for approx 3 years now, and it is an adventure! sure there are dark times, although thanks to a good heap of luck and determination (well ok, mostly luck!), it has/is working out quite well.
I think the hardest thing for me personally has been the dicipline. It is so easy in the early stages to simply put off work – “I can work later tonight”. You have to be more strict than when working a full time job. The positive sides are great too though – and environmentally helpful too! I don’t have to travel as much, in fact I probably travel about 75% less now. That means even by public transport, it’s a great saving. Also I don’t obviously spend as much. Travel aside, I still used to spend approx $20 per day on coffee, lunch etc, which is hard to control especially working in an office/corporate environment.
The main reason I can work quite well technically/logistically now is due to broadband. Internet speeds have increased, reliability is a lot better than the old days, and you can now have multiple backups without spending too much.
For instance, I have a home based wireless (like a satellite dish) broadband connection (due to the fact ADSL/Cable isn’t good enough around where I live). The connection is suprisingly good, and runs at around 1024/512k which is fine for what I need (obviously faster would be better). As a backup, I have an Optus (2nd largest Telecom in Australia) wireless broadband USB modem for either a PC/Laptop, and a secondary backup NextG (3G) mobile phone from Telstra. So in effect I have 3 different broadband connections working from different “backbones”. All this costs me no more than $140 per month which is exceptional considering this equates to about a week and half of my old daily spending budget whilst working in the city.
Here is another interesting article for “web workers”, actually from one of my favourite blogs “Web Worker Daily“
