Designing #vanlife for #worklife
How I prioritized working for CarMax while living in a car.
When rumors of a global pandemic started, I was far away from home, on the other side of the world. On March 13th, 2020, I returned to a very different reality. Grocery stores were empty, people were stuck at home. Every art class I was supposed to teach got canceled — and like everyone, I began a new adventure in remote work life.
If there is one thing you should know about me, it’s that I prioritize travel and rest. I work hard so I can enjoy my life outside of work. A month into lockdown, with no end in sight, I had to quickly brainstorm how I could continue to pursue those goals.
Small living has always appealed to me and I, like a lot of friends my age, had romanticized ideas about van life. As a product designer, my daydreaming tends to begin with good research. And my research led me to find the perfect van off Craigslist on a Sunday in mid-May. For me, there was no better time than the pandemic to test out this plan and the only way I could imagine traveling safely.
The next day in my 1 on 1 with my manager, I loosely explained my idea of going remote while working remotely. With the support of my leadership team, I was able to pursue this dream because I had a lot of trust already built up with design & product teams. In no way did I want to compromise this opportunity and it was important that we would still be able to meet the needs of the business, so I set about designing my new van life for work life.
I looked for blogs with work recommendations, but realized a lot fell short. Turns out most folks who achieve their van life dreams have flexible hours or work freelance. So, I quickly adapted and made it my goal to ensure that no one at my full-time job could tell the difference between me sitting in a van or me sitting at the office.
Here’s how I did it:
Test first.
Before leaving I experimented in my driveway. I slept in the van to make sure I could rest well before working a full day. I’d take one or two meetings from the passenger seat, sitting outside on my porch, or in the back of the van. I looked for feedback early and often from my team to see what was working and what wasn’t. Even if you think you’ve planned for every scenario, sometimes you have put your phone in a plastic bag in a cup of ice because it overheated on a hot day in the middle of Texas. Don’t look at it as a failure. Look at it as an opportunity to find a better solution. Isn’t that what we do as designers all the time?
Strong connection, strong connections
I worked nearly exclusively off my cell phone as a hot spot. While I love being off-grid, I knew I had a keep a strong connection during the week for work. Jumping from a coffee shop to a coffee shop isn’t a possibility, so I prioritized all my route planning around being in populated areas with a strong signal for work. Then, I spent weekends in cellular dead zones. These places of no connection were where I planned to restore my connection. Once or twice, I knew I needed a signal to run a workshop and I wanted to be in a more remote place. In those situations, I bit the bullet and got an Airbnb set up with clear Wi-Fi. I also made it a point to go out of the way to set up remote coffee dates or water cooler chats so that my personal connections, like my cell signal, remained strong.
My time is their time.
My office is on the East Coast. When I left for my new van life adventure, we didn’t have any employees within the product organization in other parts of the country. I spent a ton of time out west with family, but just because I crossed a time zone didn’t mean my work did. I made sure to keep my computer fixed on Eastern Standard and adjusted all my working hours to match. It made for some early mornings for sure but ending a workday at 2 pm local time was a dream.
Background boundaries.
My core team was aware I was in a van and word quickly spread to other groups. But I didn’t want it (or me) to LOOK like I was working in a van. Conducting research, meeting with stakeholders and presentations are critical expectations of my role. I designed the workspace in my van to have a neutral background for this reason and made sure my appearance remained business casual and professional. I invested in clothing like non-wrinkling blazers and kept a tidy area to be respectful. Luckily, we were all figuring out the remote thing together, so my team and I all had to have grace for each other when unusual situations popped up in the background.
Sharing is only sometimes caring
Everyone’s life since March 13th, 2020, has looked different. Recognizing that made it important for me to remember my remote work life, and travel stories, might lift up some, and bring others down. To stay grounded in empathy, I only shared things when I was invited into a conversation to do so. With my closer co-workers or in a more social chat, I’d give more insight into my location or adventures. Acknowledging the gift of van life I’d been given also kept me constantly grateful despite other challenges.
Van life is insanely glamorized and isn’t for everyone. That said, I truly think anyone can do it. However, you pursue balancing work and remote life, or if you’re thinking about redesigning your remote life, I recommend taking a cue from the design thinking process and trying an experiment or two. Failures are a critical part of the process and will teach you valuable lessons along the way. Hopefully, the lessons I learned will give you a place to start. And maybe one day I’ll find you on the road.
I published this article over on my medium account in partnership with CarMax on Feburary 22, 2022. Check it out here.