I’ve been in a job that’s been nearly 100% remote since the pandemic. The company I’m with was in the fortunate position to have an ending lease during the pandemic, and the one they replaced it with is much more creative; open-air community spaces, meeting booths, and a coffee-shop style setup. If you need to come in, there’s a hot-desking system that works on a first-come, first-served basis.

I rarely use the office, unless an event is happening. The team of writer and editors I work with don’t even all live in the same city; our team is international, spanning several oceans and many time zones.

When I first started going fully remote, it was such a new experience for me (I think it was new for a lot of people. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a large portion of the workforce to adapt to different working experiences). I was used to working from home only on Fridays; I’d save my easier tasks until the end of the week, and ensure that I had relaxing work from home days. Suddenly I was expected to be fully remote, handling a full workload when I never had before, during a pandemic.

It’s been six years since that change occurred, almost to the day. During that time, my approach to working remotely has mirrored my philosophy on slow travel. I’ve realized that the lessons I was learning from remote working—namely, pace, boundaries, and attention—were the same lessons that shaped how I travel. Namely, what I’ve learned is:

No one is thinking about me as much as I am. When I first started working from home, I was so self-conscious about the impression of others. What if people thought I was lying around in bed all day? What if people saw my usual work product as sub-par—wasn’t I expected to improve now that I was more comfortable? What if I accidentally put a cat filter on my camera that I couldn’t take off?

Ok, that last one wasn’t a real worry. But I started to get very anxious about being visible at work. I wanted to show people I was doing remote work the right way.

But after a while, I realized—no one cared. No one was watching me like a hawk; my work wasn’t being scrutinized. All that pressure to be perfect was coming from, well, me.

I think this happened when I first started travelling, too. I was obsessed with posting lots of Instagrams about the places I was going and the landmarks I was seeing, in an effort to show others that I was living an enviable life (that’s the point of Instagram, right?). But other than the temporary happiness I got from people interacting with my post, I realized­—what other people thought about me wasn’t nearly as important as I’d believed. The opinion that mattered to me most was my own, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about travelling—solo or otherwise—until I felt like I had a better handle on what I was doing. No one judges you as much as yourself!

Good days start with small wins. Every day I try to do a few things that make me feel like I’m on top of my self-care; use some mouthwash, wash my face, stretch, make a tea, drink it while journaling. I don’t do all these things every morning; but the mornings that I do, I feel like I’ve started my day out on a little win, and suddenly taking on the workday feels less daunting. I also like to make sure that my day starts out with a clean workspace, and a breakfast of overnight oats; these are things I sort the night before.

When I travel, there’s a lot less that’s within my control. But having a morning routine where I at least stretch and wash my face is a good start. I try to plan breakfast the night before; it’s nice not to have that question hanging over my head, especially when I’m tired and hungry! Having a plan for the day, however rough, is a nice way to ensure that I don’t dawdle the day away, or spend most of the day planning and then get panicked feeling like I have to make up for lost time.

There’s a limit to how many “just one more” things I can add to my day. When I started working remotely, I felt like it was such a privilege that I got to work from home that I found it hard to turn down work. Favours, last-minute calls, and unpaid overtime hours felt like a small price to pay for working from home. Until I realized some nights I was working an hour later than I should—for tasks that could definitely wait until the morning. Overloading my day with little things, rather than prioritizing what was actually important, wasn’t doing me any favours.

The same thing is true for slow travel—I’ve had trips where I’ve been almost running from café to museum to boutique to landmark, trying to catch my breath long enough to catch up to the never-ending itinerary I had in my head. It’s always better to just think about what the most important objectives are and focus on them—rather than try to do everything. Keeping my expectations in line with reality also saves me a lot of anxiety-inducing problems; it means I don’t overextend myself, and come home exhausted!

I do, in fact, need other people. An absence of coworkers was first replaced by roommates, and later, by my partner. But the thing that really helped me was the “fun” meetings; the coffee-style chats, the get-to-know-you webinars, the support groups for new managers. Even the video chats are helpful in making me feel like I’m not alone. And this insight has helped me accept that although I like solo travel, meeting up with people isn’t a betrayal of this ethos; so whenever I find myself getting lonely, I find ways to find others. I make conversations with strangers on walking tours; I chat with servers in cafes I like and go back regularly; I check out hostels where other travellers might be staying. We all need people!

Life is what you dare to get away with. Working from home has meant that I’ve taken certain liberties while being remote. Going super-remote—ie, travelling abroad and/or having a “working holiday”—has happened more than once, as has logging off early to catch an evening flight or train. I used to feel guilty about saving my lunch hour until the end of the day, or not feeling the need to let my boss know that my workplace had changed. Because apart from nicer weather, the work was always done—and as long as the quality of your work (and life!) doesn’t change based on your location, the only person you need to be accountable to is yourself.

How do you think remote work has changed you? I hope you’ll let me know below. Happy travels!