Do the inner soul-searching. Not everyone is hard-wired to be a remote worker. “You need to be honest with yourself,” Sutton tells me. “Are you self-disciplined, focused, organized, skilled at time-management? You must be able to set boundaries around your work environment with friends, family, neighbors, or when working in a co-working space and not being distracted all the time.”Are you tech-savvy, open to learning new tools, and comfortable fixing minor technical problems? They will arise.Do you thrive off of the stimulation of office colleagues buzzing around you? One of the biggest hurdles for remote workers is loneliness. “If it's going to be a real con for you, and you can feel it in your gut that it will be hard for you not to have that interaction and action environment, then don't consider remote work,” Sutton advises. “Part-time or a flexible schedule might be better.”I agree with Sutton. Succeeding as a remote worker really is an individual effort. If you're in your 20s and 30s, an office environment can be fantastic. You build friendships and a lifelong network. I loved working with colleagues during my 20s and 30s in the Forbes magazine office in Greenwich Village and at the U.S. News & World Report headquarters on the edge of Georgetown in Washington, D.C.Many of those relationships remain strong today. I could not have achieved what I have in my career if I had not had that in-office experience and learning opportunity from the veterans who mentored me and those with whom I shared bylines and reporting duties along the way. Those long days and eyeball-to-eyeball interactions formed the spine of my work ethic and solidly built my career trajectory.But for someone who has young children, or is an introvert, remote duties might be the perfect ticket to achieving a balanced approach to productive work. And for those gliding, or phasing, into retirement, or working part-time in retirement, the freedom to work remotely is a benefit you can't put a price tag on.That said, you can put a cost savings on some of the basics. The researchers at FlexJobs estimate that the average person could save around $4,000 a year by working from home. Dry cleaning and laundering ($500–$1,500) ranked as one of the largest costs of working from an office, as well as lunches and coffee ($1,040). Commuting also factored in, with items like gas ($686) or car maintenance ($767) costing additional money over the year.

       Connect, connect, connect. The very best remote workers will reach out to co-workers and managers regularly. “A key skill companies who hire remote workers are looking for is communication,” Sutton says. “You need to be able to say, hey, I'm a little confused about this, or hey, can you help clarify this for me? You have to take responsibility and speak up. If you're not visible, it's hard for your manager to know something's wrong.”Network with people you know at remote-friendly employers where you'd like to work. UnitedHealth Group, Kelly Services, Amazon, Robert Half International, GitLab, and Dell are among the leading companies regularly hiring for remote jobs. Xerox, American Express, and about two dozen other Fortune 500 companies have made entire divisions remote. (See Part II for a deeper dive.)You might go straight to a company you'd like to work for, maybe even your current employer, and see if it hires remote workers. A good place to start is the career section of the company's website.

       Take the time to research. Online job boards like Flexjobs.com, Remote.co, and WAHVE.com connect employers with workers who are focused on legitimate work-from-home jobs and prescreen each job and employer to be certain they aren't scams. Other popular remote job boards to check out are Rat Race Rebellion, Working Nomads, We Work Remotely, Skip The Drive, Jobspresso, Sidehusl and ZipRecruiter, and even UpWork regular gigs (more on these in Chapter 5).FlexJobs, for one, reports that its remote job listings grew 52 percent in the past two years; the most common and top career fields offering remote work are sales, medical and health, education and training, customer service, and computer and information technology.Job titles range from customer service representative to program manager to teacher, accounting (bookkeepers, CFOs, controllers, etc.), administrative assistants, virtual assistants, medical transcriptionists, remote nurses, pharmacists, radiologists, and data entry. Pay ranges from $18/hour to $40/hour or more, depending on the level of the job and the experience. (See Part I.)“Search on the job boards for skills you have and passions outside of titles,” Sutton says. “Be a little experimental with it. If you're in data analytics, but also love biking, type in those words and see what comes up. With remote work, it is really helpful if you're passionate about what you're doing, and it's not just punching a clock That will keep you motivated when you are working solo.”