To many people, working from home is one of the best things that could happen to their workflow. To some other people, it’s the worst. If you’re trying to decide whether or not to work from home, the bad news is that the decision is not going to be simple. The good news is that this guide contains information on the pros as well as cons of working from home. You can go through them and decide whether or not working from home is for you.
Pros of working from home
There is no commute
One of the most significant advantages of having your office in your home is that there is no commute. You can get out of bed five minutes before your regular resumption time, and you’ll be early. Besides having a better sleep at night, working from home can also help you to do more with your time.
You can work more
When you work from home, you can work around the clock, or as much as you want. You’ll never have to worry about the time and whether or not you’ll be able to make it home in time for dinner. Dinner will be down the hall. Even if you’re not inclined to work around the clock, you can at least add up the time you save by working from home and put that into your work. If you usually spend 45 minutes on the road each day, that’s 45 more minutes that you can allocate to your work.
You can have a fluid schedule
Working from home also means that you get to choose when you work. Although, if you’re a part of a team, you may not be able to determine what time you have to be at your desk. You’ll need to be available to reply to emails and meet deadlines. But otherwise, you can decide to sleep during the day and work at night. As long as you get the job done, you’re pretty much good to go.
No office interruptions
Granted, working from home can bring distractions of its own. We’ll address these under the cons section. But, working in an office can be distracting too. In an office, any one of your coworkers can walk up to your desk and talk to you. They could ask for a report, or they could tell you about their weekend. Whatever it is, their presence and conversation can interrupt your workflow and pull your focus.
You will improve your communication skills
Working in an office requires a minimum amount of communication. You see your coworkers all the time, and they are only a few steps away from your desk. As a result, you can communicate with them fairly quickly. But when you’re working from home, you’ll have to rely on communication methods like Skype, emails, and web conferences. This reliance will force you to become more proficient with the communication mediums.
You can balance your work and personal life better
Spending long hours in the office can make anyone lose control of their own life. You no longer have time to spend with friends, and you’re continually missing important milestones. But, when you work from home, you can manage your time and schedule better. You can easily take breaks and arrange for how you’ll make up the time.
Cons of working from home
Here are some of the disadvantages of making your home your office:
Work-related stress becomes a constant
When you work in an office, it’s easy to leave your work stress with you. As soon as you leave the building, you forget the impending deadlines or the pressure to increase your performance. However, if your office is a few steps from your bed, you’ll remember all the work you have to do every time you pass the room. Fortunately, verywellmind has lots of tips on how you can manage work-related stress.
There are home distractions
While chatty coworkers may not disrupt your workflow at home, friends and family members can. Distraction from family members actually has the potential to be worse than coworker distractions. At least, at the office, there’s a certain level of decorum and conduct that is expected. But, at home, nothing stops your five-year-old from smearing your work station with finger paint because she wants to borrow your pen.
You’ll need a lot of self-discipline
If your work station is down the hall, then you can convince yourself that it’s okay to get up at any time. You think you can sleep for as long as you want and jump right to work. Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. Getting and staying focused when all your best things surround you requires a lot of self-discipline and will power. Sometimes, it helps to set up an office in your home. That way, you can have space where you can focus. These tips from the balance can help you set up an office space in your home.
Socializing becomes more difficult
Some people are very social, and they have no problems making friends wherever they are. For some other people, work friends are all they have. And because of the close-knit format of the work environment, they get along pretty well. If you’re one of those people who only has work friends, then working at home will be very tough for you. Socializing will be quite difficult because you’ve never learned how to make friends outside of the office space.
You may find it hard to stop working
If working at home can enable you to work more, then it can also prevent you from clocking out when you do work. If you happen to love what you do, you may even begin to prefer working to other activities. Your workdays start to blur into each other, and it’s not difficult to find yourself working day and night, hunched over a desk. Before you know it, you stop noticing the beautiful features of your home, like your equinos louvered roof.
The bottom line
Working from home can be potentially good or bad for you, and it all depends on your goals and specific situation. If you are going to set up a home office, you should keep the potential cons in mind and find creative ways to overcome them. If you don’t, then working from home may become a nightmare for you.