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Working From Home: 7 Lessons I’ve Learned From Years of Remote Work
I’m Emily, a CFG Ambassador and Data Engineer, and before moving into the world of geospatial data engineering, I worked across several areas of technology, including backend and frontend engineering and production support, in industries ranging from finance to oil and gas.
My career has involved quite a lot of change, but one thing has remained fairly constant: I have spent a significant amount of time working from home. While this might not seem particularly unusual in 2026, working remotely was a very different experience before the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), only around 1.7 million people in the UK, just over 5% of the workforce, reported working mainly from home in 2019.
By April 2020, following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement on 23rd March, of a nationwide lockdown, 46.6% of people in employment were doing at least some work from home, with 86% of those people saying they were doing so because of the pandemic.
Working from home went from being relatively unusual to becoming the way millions of people worked, and six years later, we still haven’t entirely gone back.
The office hasn’t disappeared, but the assumption that office workers need to be there five days a week certainly has. And in many ways, being able to work from home is great.
The Benefit of Working From Home
No commute, or at least less commuting
Having previously lost hours each week to long, exhausting journeys, often made worse by delays and cancellations, one of the biggest advantages of working from home is simply not having to commute every day.
That time is yours again. It can be spent on hobbies, chores, exercise, career development, or simply enjoying more time with family and friends. Even if you still commute occasionally, reducing the number of journeys you make each week can make a noticeable difference.
Cost savings
There are financial benefits too. Depending on how you travel, working from home can mean spending less on train fares, petrol and parking, as well as all the smaller expenses that tend to come with going into an office: coffees, expensive meal deals and other purchases that quickly add up.
Improved wellbeing
Working from home can also make the daily routine less demanding. If your previous schedule meant getting up early simply to make it to the office on time, being able to start the day later can make a surprisingly big difference. Having a little more time in the morning, and removing the stress of the commute, can make the working day feel considerably more manageable.
There are plenty of other advantages, too. Parents may have more flexibility around school runs and other family commitments. You may find that you have fewer distractions at home than you would in an office. It’s easier to make your lunch from scratch, and there’s something to be said for having all your home comforts within easy reach.
But there is another side to all of this.
On an average day in 2023, one in 10 young Americans aged between 23 and 29 did not spend a single minute interacting face to face with another person’ .
When you work from home, your workplace is also your home. A commute to the office, however unpleasant, creates a natural boundary between work and the rest of your life. Remote working can remove that boundary almost entirely—and with it, some of the separation between work and home that we may not realise we need until it’s gone.
In an article for the Financial Times, John-Burns Murdoch wrote: ‘I came across the following: on an average day in 2023, one in 10 young Americans aged between 23 and 29 did not spend a single minute interacting face to face with another person’ .
There is no doubt that that is a startling statistic. While an office provides hundreds of tiny interactions that you barely notice until they disappear: greeting people, making coffee with a colleague, asking a quick question or chatting about what you watched last night, when working remotely, those interactions have to become more intentional.
Over time, I’ve found that making remote working successful requires a little effort. These are the things that have made the biggest difference for me
7 Lessons for Successful Remote Working
The most powerful thing a manager can do during a pregnancy is ask open questions. Not “are you okay?” but “what would make this period easier for you?” Not “let me know if you need anything” but “here is what I can offer – which of these is actually useful?”
Pregnancy is not a single uniform experience, some people feel capable and energised for most of it. Others are exhausted and uncomfortable from week one. Blanket policies do not account for that variety: individual conversations do.
Create a workspace that works for you
If possible, create somewhere in your home that signals: I’m at work now. Ideally, this means a separate room, but even a dedicated workspace can help create some separation between working and living.
If working from home is a permanent part of your life, don’t treat your setup as temporary. Invest in a good chair, desk, monitor, keyboard and mouse. I eventually realised that my chair was contributing to my constant back pain and replaced it with an operator chair, which made a huge difference.
Lighting matters too. If possible, position your workspace near a window, ideally at a 90-degree angle, so you get natural light without excessive glare or eye strain.
Create a beginning and end to your day
It can help to create a fake commute. Go for a morning walk, run, bike ride or gym session—even ten or fifteen minutes can create a useful transition between home and work.
Do the same at the end of the day. Close the laptop, leave the house and go for a walk, to the gym, or wherever else you want to go.
When you commute, there is a physical point at which you leave work. At home, nothing forces you to do that. Being able to work at any time shouldn’t become feeling that you have to work all the time. Set a finishing time and, where possible, spend your evenings away from screens.
Leave the house and have a life outside work
When you work in an office, leaving the house takes care of itself. When you work remotely, it doesn’t, and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into a routine of waking up, working, eating and sleeping without ever going outside.
Make a point of going for a lunchtime walk or run, sitting in a park, going to the gym, getting a coffee or meeting someone after work. Make time for hobbies, particularly ones with a social element.
Over the past year, I’ve completed two acting courses, worked as an assistant stage manager on a play and dance showcase, completed a performance dance course, performed with a dance group and started rehearsals for a play I was cast in. I also regularly run, weight train and go to the gym.
These activities get me out of the house and, crucially, around other people. What matters is having something in your life that regularly gets you away from your desk.
Make an effort to talk to people
Communication in an office often happens accidentally. When working from home, it has to be intentional.
Send a Slack or Teams message, make a call, join the social, or simply ask someone how their weekend was before launching into work. This is particularly important when you’re new to a company.
Relationships can be harder to build remotely because you lose the spontaneous conversations that happen naturally when people share a physical space.
I’d also recommend turning your camera on during calls where appropriate. Not every meeting needs video, but when you work almost entirely remotely, seeing people matters. Facial expressions and body language provide context, and video calls may be one of your few opportunities to build a human connection with colleagues.
Take proper breaks
Without colleagues getting up for coffee or heading out for lunch, it’s easy to sit at your desk for hours without moving. I’ve done this far too often.
Step away throughout the day. Make a hot drink, eat lunch somewhere other than your desk, go outside, rest your eyes or stretch.
You probably took breaks in the office too; they just may not have felt like breaks. Walking to the kitchen, getting coffee, chatting to a colleague or going downstairs to buy lunch all provided natural interruptions.
Working from home shouldn’t mean sitting in front of your computer continuously for eight hours.
Eliminate distractions and improve focus
Working from home can make it easier to be distracted by your phone. I keep mine permanently on Do Not Disturb; otherwise, I’d be getting WhatsApp notifications throughout the day.
Apps that block distracting websites and phone applications can help too. I’ve used Freedom and AppBlock, as well as focus apps such as Forest and Focus Plant.
Noise can be another distraction. Free websites and apps can provide masking sounds such as white, pink and brown noise, rain, rivers and fans. I often use Online Background Noises, while White Noise Lite is another useful option.
Make yourself visible
There is a difference between being productive and people knowing what you contribute.
In an office, visibility can happen almost automatically: your manager sees you, colleagues overhear discussions and people notice when you help solve a problem. Remote working removes much of that ambient visibility, so you need to be more deliberate.
Share progress, document decisions, participate in discussions, mention blockers early and demo what you’ve built or worked on. Keep a record of things you’re proud of, and importantly, give colleagues credit when they’ve helped you.
Conclusion
Working from home can significantly improve your quality of life, but only if you make it work for you. The absence of a commute, greater flexibility and more control over your environment are significant benefits, but they come with trade-offs.
The boundaries between work and home can disappear, isolation can creep in and entire days can pass without you leaving your desk.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that the benefits don’t happen automatically. You have to create the boundaries, routines and human connections that an office once provided for you.
