
The Remote Work Handbook
How to Actually Work Well From Home, From a Cafe, or From Anywhere on the PlanetBy Dominic AldrichLength7h 26m
About this audiobook
The remote work handbook for experienced work from home professionals: async communication, the home office setup that won't wreck your body, beating remote worker loneliness, and negotiating remote work with a reluctant employer.
In April 2020, Dominic Aldrich was at a kitchen table in Lisbon explaining to a colleague in Toronto why their standup had gone sideways for the fourth day running. The video kept freezing, two teammates had kids climbing on them, and a third was clearly still in bed. He had already been working remotely since 2014, and that pandemic year taught him the lesson at the heart of this book: doing remote work for a long time is not the same as doing it well. This is the honest, specific guide for people who are past the basics and starting to suspect they are leaving something on the table.
This is a remote work book without the digital-nomad-influencer aesthetic. Aldrich has worked remotely from twenty-three countries and one suburban office in New Jersey, and the New Jersey office is where he did his best work, because place matters less than the practices. Across twenty chapters he names the meta-skill nobody teaches (self-sufficient communication), the gear that keeps your body intact for a decade, and the people problems that actually break remote careers: loneliness, coworkers you never see, five-hour time-zone gaps, and the hybrid setup nobody has figured out. Every recommendation is concrete down to the chair brand and the exact words to use.
Inside this remote work book:
• Self-sufficient communication — Write every async message as if the reader will read it once, while tired, with no chance to ask a follow-up; the skill that took one team's throughput up nearly thirty percent without longer hours
• A home office setup that doesn't wreck your body — Named, priced gear (a $700 chair, the Uplift V2 desk, a dedicated USB mic over earbuds) and why a $40 chair you feel fine in today catches up with you in five years
• The morning routine that replaces the commute — Rebuilding the structure a commute used to provide so you stop finishing the day exhausted and unable to say why
• Working from a cafe without getting nothing done — Plus the real rules for working while traveling, instead of the four-hours-on-a-beach fantasy people sell in courses
• The remote worker's loneliness problem — Building real relationships with coworkers you never see, a chapter that lands differently in year three than year one
• Negotiating remote work with a reluctant employer — The exact language for the manager who wants you back in the office, written by someone who has used it
• Time zones, hybrid, and a career that lasts a decade — Working across five-hour gaps, the two-days-in three-at-home hybrid setup, and why the habits that carry the first five years stop working in year six
This is not a manifesto and not a pitch that remote work beats the office for everyone; Aldrich is blunt that for some people, jobs, and life stages, an office is the right answer. It is for the people who have already decided they will be doing remote work for the foreseeable future and want to clear a higher bar than not getting fired. Opinionated about specifics, humble about generalities, and free of the phrase work-life balance.
For readers of Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson's Remote: Office Not Required and Cal Newport's Slow Productivity.
Audiobook details
GenreBusiness and Economics, Self-Help
Length7 hrs 26 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
14Chapter 13 — Working While Traveling: The Real Rules
2Chapter 1 — The Remote Work Skill That Nobody Teaches
15Chapter 14 — Co-Working Spaces: When They Help and When They Don’t
3Chapter 2 — Your Home Office Setup That Doesn’t Wreck Your Body
16Chapter 15 — Negotiating Remote Work With a Reluctant Employer
4Chapter 3 — The Morning Routine That Replaces the Commute
17Chapter 16 — The Remote Worker’s Health Routine
5Chapter 4 — Async Communication: Writing as the Core Remote Skill
18Chapter 17 — Boundaries When Home and Work Share an Address
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6Chapter 5 — Synchronous Meetings That Earn Their Place
19Chapter 18 — Managing Distributed Teams Across Continents
7Chapter 6 — Managing Your Calendar When Nobody Else Is Watching
20Chapter 19 — The Hybrid Setup: Two Days in Office, Three at Home
8Chapter 7 — The Camera-On vs. Camera-Off Question
21Chapter 20 — Building a Remote Career That Lasts a Decade
9Chapter 8 — Slack, Teams, and the Notification Tax
22Conclusion
10Chapter 9 — Working From a Cafe Without Getting Nothing Done
23Appendix A — A Day-by-Day Remote Worker’s Week
11Chapter 10 — The Remote Worker’s Loneliness Problem
24Appendix B — The Remote Worker’s Gear Guide
12Chapter 11 — Building Relationships With Coworkers You Never See
25About the Author
13Chapter 12 — Time Zones: Working Across Five-Hour Gaps