Remote work in the 2020s has gone from a niche approach to employment to a serious and widespread phenomenon.
According to statistics collected by StrongDM.com, around four times the number of people work in remote jobs in 2025 compared to 2020.
As remote work opportunities expand and the tech to support it grows more advanced, this pattern is only likely to grow.
Working from home can offer a huge number of advantages to a person’s life, but it’s also an approach that has never really been standardised.
This can make it difficult to achieve maximum efficiency, where the benefits of remote work in a poor environment might be mitigated or even lost.
With that in mind, some key factors can help guide new remote workers to their perfect setup, if addressed thoughtfully.
How to Discover Your Best Remote Work Setup?
Accounting for Individuality
The most important element of a remote work setup that needs to be understood from the start is that no single environment is right for everyone.
Suitability will depend on your business, your workload, the other employees, your tastes, and the people who live with you.
This means you can’t expect to directly copy the layout of another successful remote worker, but you can use their ideas for guidance.
For a general setup, it’s a good idea for most employees to keep a separation between work and recreation by creating a specific work area.
As explained by the team at Zapier.com, this should start with ergonomics, since repetitive strain injuries are an enemy to always keep an eye on.
From here, you’ll need to consider ways to keep noise down, like soundproofing or noise-cancelling earphones. Finally, remove distractions, but keep enough decoration to maintain a positive mood.
The other aspect requiring serious addressing is the human element. While you’ll take your work seriously, family members or flatmates might not understand this.
This means discussing how your work time is not interruptible for anything other than an emergency, so be prepared to have this talk more than once.
Building Your Perfect Environment
The second part of this equation comes from understanding that, as hard as you might try, there can be times when a location simply isn’t suited to work.
It might be a fantastic property otherwise, but busy neighbours or long distances to necessary infrastructure might hold you back.
In these cases, moving or at least monitoring new and better-suited properties might be a better approach.
This can be approached with traditional estate agents, or with modern and faster online sales services such as Sold.co.uk, for example. By offering no hidden fees and the ability to sell in your own timeframe, such modern approaches can help you move quickly on rare opportunities.
This way, you can set yourself up better for the remote working future, to increase productivity, happiness, and work/life balance.
No matter which option you go with, every newcomer needs to understand that working remotely for the first time is a learning experience.
Mistakes can be common at first, but as long as you’re willing to learn from missteps and adopt a positive attitude, remote employment can be accepted by nearly everyone. For the sake of saving on commuting time and costs alone, the effort is worth it.
