As a mom, I am beyond blessed to have a remote working arrangement. This allows me to be present in my son’s life, but still be able to use my legal background when I’m taking a break from singing the ABCs.
When people find out about this, they often ask how I was able to land it in the first place. This is actually a tough question — not because I want to gatekeep or was just lucky — but because I can talk about this topic extensively.
My Story
To give you an idea, allow me to talk about my qualifications for a bit. In the early 2000s, my dad introduced me to a webpage builder. It was a free hosting site with built-in templates and a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Editor. I used it as an online diary (to be honest, I couldn’t call it a blog at this point), but it was so limiting in what it can do creatively. So, I did my research and studied HTML and CSS to build my first website from scratch.
By the time I was in high school, I had a semi-decent blog after discovering WordPress, and had a short-lived fan site for Emma Watson. I didn’t earn anything from these websites, but needless to say, I saw potential in what I can do with the Internet, and I knew that working from home was possible.
Fast forward to 2011, and I landed my first online job shortly after graduating from college. It paid peanuts, but I was also helping my parents with our small businesses, so I was up-to-date with my government contributions. When my parents decided to close shop, I knew I needed to make it a full-time thing. Unfortunately, updating my government details was so troublesome as a freelancer — and this is ultimately why I decided to take up law in 2015.
While in law school, I had online writing gigs for various clients to help pay for my books (and eventually to keep my mind off the Bar Exam results). I eventually passed the 2019 Bar Examinations, but the results came out in 2020 — at the very start of a global pandemic. Job opportunities for new lawyers in our area were limited due to the pandemic, but I always believed that I could land one online. Eventually, I did; and I won’t say it’s luck. It’s about knowing where to look and how you make yourself discoverable to the right clients.
What You’ll Learn
Now that you know my story, you have an idea about what to expect from this Mastering the Art of Remote Work Series. I’ve decided to post them in a series-type format because: (1) I only have a few minutes per day to write (so you know I’m not dependent on AI), (2) I want to cover a variety of topics at length without being too overwhelming, and (3) doing so will allow me to arrange my thoughts better.
In this series, I aim to cover the following:
- The types of online work and debunking myths;
- Assessing whether the online job lifestyle is right for you;
- The tools and skills you need to land a job online;
- Landing a job and avoiding scams;
- Once you’re in, government contributions and how to prepare for retirement;
- Once you’re in, setting up boundaries; and
- Answering frequently asked questions that are too random to be categorized.
So, stay tuned as I share nuggets of my knowledge in remote work in the hopes of helping you land one, too. In the meantime, follow me on MommyJev on Instagram to get updates about my new posts.
