# Reflecting on Twelve Years of Remote Work 21 October 2026 ยท Career, Remote Looking back on nearly twelve years of remote work, what changed during COVID, and what I still appreciate about working from home. --- This December will mark twelve years since I started working remotely. I joined InVision in 2014, when the entire company was distributed, and working with people I'd mostly see through a screen was something I had to get used to. When people found out I worked from home, the questions were usually pretty similar. How do you stay motivated? Don't you get lonely? Do you actually get dressed in the morning? Yes, I get dressed. I covered that one in my [original post about remote work](/blog/reflecting-on-four-years-of-remote-work/). I wrote that article in 2019, after about four years of working remotely. Reading it now, a lot of what I wrote still holds up. I liked the flexibility, I didn't miss taking the bus, and I was still figuring out how to leave work alone when my computer was a room away. Since that first reflection, I've had a lot more time to live with those trade-offs. I've also watched remote work go from something that needed explaining to something people around me experienced for themselves during COVID. It seemed like a good time to revisit what I wrote and see how much my opinion has changed. ## Before working from home was normal One of the nice things about starting at InVision was that remote work was already how the company operated. There wasn't an office where decisions happened while the remote people tried to catch up. We were all working that way. Slack was where we talked throughout the day, and meetings happened on Zoom. The people I worked with were spread across different time zones, so getting an answer sometimes meant waiting until someone was online. It took some adjusting, but it became normal pretty quickly. The benefits were easy to appreciate. Before working remotely, I'd take two or three buses to get to work, spending about an hour and a half travelling each way. Waiting for a late bus in the middle of winter wasn't something I needed much time to get over. Being able to step away for an appointment or help with something at home made a much bigger difference than I expected too. Those things sound small until you think about how much planning they require when you're spending most of your day away from home. ## Then COVID happened In 2020, working from home went from something I occasionally had to explain to something people around me were suddenly doing themselves. For me, the work setup was familiar. I'd already spent years collaborating online and getting comfortable with a workday that didn't involve going into an office. I had a routine to fall back on. But that only accounted for the work part. Having experience with remote work didn't prepare me for a pandemic any more than it did anyone else. One thing that stood out was how different the circumstances were for people trying it for the first time. I'd chosen a remote job at a company that was set up for it. People were suddenly trying to do their existing jobs from home while also dealing with school closures, limited space, and everything else happening around them. That's a lot to figure out at once. When I wrote about flexibility in 2019, I mentioned being able to watch my son for an hour or two if he was home sick from daycare. Even then, that required some juggling. Trying to work while childcare was unavailable for an extended period was a very different situation for families. I kept thinking about that when people talked about whether working from home was going well. There were so many things affecting the answer beyond where someone had their laptop. ## The things I still appreciate After nearly twelve years, the things I value most about remote work are fairly ordinary. I still appreciate having the time I would have spent commuting. I like being able to focus on a problem without someone walking over to my desk. And having some flexibility around the rest of my life continues to matter a lot. I've also had years of experience working with people in different places. Looking back at my time at InVision, the fact that we weren't sitting together didn't stop us from building products together or taking ownership of our work. There was a lot of communication involved, of course. You couldn't assume someone knew what you were working on just because they'd seen you at your desk that morning. That part of my earlier post is still relevant: give people context. Explain what you've tried when asking a question. Let your team know when something is blocked. It saves a lot of back and forth, especially when you don't all work the same hours. ## Meeting the people behind the screen One thing I appreciate more after all these years is getting to meet coworkers face to face. It's a funny experience meeting someone in person when you've already spent so much time working together online. You know their voice, how they approach a problem, and probably what the room behind their desk looks like. But you've never actually stood in the same room. There's already a level of familiarity there, so you have plenty to talk about. At the same time, you get to know a bit more about them outside of whatever you're building together. A lot of remote conversations happen because someone needs something. There's a question to answer, a pull request to review, or a meeting with an agenda. Meeting up gives you more room for the conversations that don't need a reason to happen. You can grab a coffee, go for a walk, or sit down for a meal without needing to schedule another call. I still value having long stretches of time to focus at home, but I appreciate those opportunities to spend time together too. Working remotely for this long has made me realize how much I enjoy both. ## The parts that haven't become easier I wish I could say that enough years of working remotely automatically gives you good boundaries. In my original post, I wrote about spending a couple of extra hours at the computer after dinner and suddenly realizing I'd worked a ten-hour day. Reading that again, I'm less inclined to brush it off because I happen to enjoy the work. There's always another thing to look into, and having easy access to it doesn't help you decide when you've done enough for the day. I also wrote about occasionally missing the commute because it gave me some time to decompress. I certainly don't want the three hours of buses back, but I understand that feeling. Finishing a workday and being available to your family involves more than walking out of your office. Then there's the effort involved in getting out of the house. Working remotely removes a reason to leave every morning. You have to make room for that elsewhere, and being aware of it doesn't mean you'll always be good at it. Those were real drawbacks in 2019, and I still think they're worth being honest about. ## What twelve years have taught me In my earlier post, I said I saw remote work as the future. Having lived through it becoming so widespread during COVID, I'd be a little less sweeping about it now. People have different circumstances, and I can understand why someone would prefer going into an office. For me, though, the flexibility and time saved have continued to outweigh the drawbacks. When I started in 2014, I was adjusting to a new job and a different way of working. Nearly twelve years later, remote work has been part of how I've built my career and made room for life around it. I still have to pay attention to the same things I wrote about back then: communicating clearly, getting out of the house, and knowing when to call it a day. Having more experience has made me appreciate the flexibility more, along with the effort it takes to use it well. --- Source: https://devinschulz.com/blog/reflecting-on-twelve-years-of-remote-work/