You may think working from home is an easier and more flexible option than the hassle of commuting into work each day, power dressing, sharing your workspace with colleagues you don’t particularly like, and having to navigate your way around the minefield of workplace politics. While technology has made it easier than ever to work from home, you can get just as stressed as you can at work. Trying to achieve the perfect work-life balance can also be especially difficult.
Not having a manager or supervisor constantly dictating your working day when you work at home does give you a certain freedom and feeling that you are more in control of how you manage your day, but you have to be disciplined.
A lot of your working day can be wasted by allowing the slightest distraction around the home to take you away from those boring, mundane jobs that need completing. Or you can end up having your work take over your home life, going without breaks, ignoring your family, working weekends and burning the midnight oil long after you should be in bed.
Not having any working colleagues to interact with during the day can be too isolating for some. Or the frustrations of having to interact with your business associates and working colleagues by phone, email and fax can be too inconvenient and not give instant results. Plus you have no colleagues on hand for help, advice and support, no one to bounce ideas around with, or provide back-up.
Guilt can also creep in when you work at home. A series of trivial, but time consuming tasks, such as the laundry or dishes can eat into your working day. You can also feel guilty that you take time out to have morning tea, or lunch, when there is work waiting to be completed. It is very difficult to separate home time from work time – the boundaries can become blurred.
Dress down days end up being every day, as you don’t have to worry about following a dress code. Some days you can find that you end up being chained to your desk before you have had time to change out of your pyjamas. You wake up, the phone goes, you get distracted by work and before you know it its midday.
Of course that is the time when you get an unexpected visitor, and you know they are looking at you quizzically, thinking that you have spent the morning lazing around in bed.
Also because you are no longer a nine to five employee, with an office, an impressive title and position description, your work can be met with a lack of interest and not taken seriously by friends and family. They think that you just do a little bit of work when you feel like it, and spend your day having endless tea breaks whilst flicking through magazines and catching up on day time television. So they are always surprised when you can’t drop everything at a moment’s notice when you are home all day.
It can be frustrating constantly reminding people that you work from home, and you don’t suffer from agoraphobia, especially when your friends and family look at you with pity, and tell you that you need to get out more.
Working at home, maybe in your own business, can bring with it administration headaches and if you are not that way inclined, it can be an extra burden to your working day.
Having a good accountant or admin support is a necessity if you don’t want to spend hours on your own business paperwork. Luckily there are lots of web based accounting, payroll and admin support systems that are easy to use and can be accessed from your home computer – working remotely has never been easier.
One of the plus sides of working at home is you can claim against your taxes for the areas you use in your home, as long as it is used principally for business, such as an office, work or storage area. You can claim a portion of the household expenses, such as the rates, insurance, power, cleaning, mortgage interest and depreciation (if you own the house).
Another advantage of working at home is, with no meetings, constantly ringing phones and other office distractions, your productivity can go up. You are more likely to complete work you are given to do and less likely to miss deadlines, all the while having the advantages of working flexible hours to suit you in your own home.
Working from home also cuts down fuel costs, less commuting time means you get to miss out on the road rage that can occur along with the traffic congestion everyday at 5pm.
Like anything, working from home has its advantages and disadvantages, but with a healthy dose of discipline, it can prove to be a prosperous alternative.
