Two years ago I co-wrote a book #iPadOnly with my friend Augusto Pinaud. Last year, to celebrate my 35th birthday I wrote a book “It’s All About Passion!”… and this year I didn’t write a book… yet. It’s because the book I’m working on right now will be something special. Not only because it’s “three times a charm”. No. It’s bigger than that. I believe this third one will be “the one” message I was born to spread to the world. Here’s why:
The one question I get a lot: Where are you based?
I’m writing these words from my home office. Which is the only office I have. Just like all the other 20+ members of my Nozbe team. We all work from home.
Every time I’m on a conference, or I just talk about what I do with someone, they always ask: “Where are you based?”
And I try to answer that our main corporate address is in Poland, but we have no real office there, and everybody works from home, and we meet every now and then, and some of us live in different countries…
And then they’re like: “OK… I think I get it… Uhm… So where are you based?”
They don’t get it. It’s 2015 and most of the companies and people don’t get it. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
So after a short pause they continue the conversation:
“We wouldn’t be able to work like that”
Then they start naming all the reasons they need the “real office”… the human contact, the creativity and how what we do might work for a small company like mine but wouldn’t work in a “real world”…
I listen and ask questions… and start telling stories from our company, how we get things done, why we work the way we do… and they get interested. Really interested.
Leading from a distance
Back in 2012 I was invited by my friend and mentor Michael Hyatt to write a guest blog post on his blog about leading my remote team.
In that blog post titled “Leading from a distance” I wrote about our team, how we work, how we get together, how we communicate, how we get things done. How I get to lead a team of people to create one of the most respected time and project management solution on the Internet.
Back then, Michael had comments enabled on his blog and many people started asking me questions about my remote team, and many said there wasn’t a good book on the subject. I didn’t think too much of it at the time… but the thought of this book on leadership from a perspective of a CEO of an all-remote company stuck.
Not only the WHY, but the HOW as well…
When a book by Jason and David “Remote - Office Not Required” showed up on the bookshelves, I thought - “great, at least I don’t really need to write this book on remote working”… but when I read it, I thought, ”not so fast”…
While that book was a great manifesto for raising awareness of “remote working”, it wasn’t a very good “how to” book. And I think for people and companies to implement remote work they not only need the “why” but also the “how”.
I started talking about it in “The Podcast”
Just listen to the 5th episode of “The Podcast” where Radek and I talk about how we work, how we don’t like the idea of “open spaces” and more. In the future episodes I’ll talk more about “NoOffice” work with Radek, so stay tuned.
After all, I’m a productivity guy, right?
My company is all-remote. My tool Nozbe helps us get things done remotely. No email, just task-based communication. We’re trying things out, we’re testing more tools, devices, ideas… that help us be productive and creative as a team of people working from their homes. I live and breathe this. This is a lifestyle I chose. This is one of the reasons I love my work so much. I shouldn’t be keeping this all to myself.
And it all started when I was in college and I wrote my final thesis on “teleworking”…
And I’m not alone in this. There are others.
I already got to interview many remote-working professionals for the Productive! Magazine. I’ll be interviewing more. I’ll be chatting more about this. I’ll be getting other people’s and companies’ tips and tricks. And I’ll test them on me and my team.
I’m writing “#NoOffice” because…
Work is not a place to go, it’s a thing that you do.
And with my book I want to share the best practices for working remotely. Why? How? Why not? Everything. The whole nine yards. The ultimate productivity book.
And I need your help: What would you want to ask me for this book? Are you interested in remote work? Are you working remotely? Would you share your stories with me?