More and more people are fighting for flexible working, working from home and becoming self employed. There are certainly pros and cons when it comes to working from home; from ditching the commute and making your own schedule, to missing your friends in the office. Despite being free to do as you please without anyone looking over your shoulder, It takes a phenomenal amount of self-discipline to start work when you know you don’t have to be in the office by 8am – you must be entirely self-motivated.
But for most, to work from home is an absolute luxury; new parents often find that they don’t want to return to their 9-5 office job for fear of missing out on their child’s magic milestones. Or, perhaps your current work is not fulfilling you. Do you have a hobby or talent that you think could be explored and taken further? Why not turn something you genuinely love doing into a business venture?
Whether you’re a keen craftsman, a fantastic make-up artist, an excellent painter, or a great seamstress dreaming of having your own bespoke shop, it’s brilliant to be able to do what you love as well as have flexibility and to choose your own hours. Now that social media and blogging can initiate so much more business, freelancers and bloggers are on the rise too.
If you are thinking of ditching your office job to be more present in the home, there are still things to consider:
- Do you have work space? It doesn’t necessarily have to be an entire room, but make sure you’re not confusing your office with your leisure space. You may need a studio, an office or a desk – but what’s important is that you don’t crawl out of bed and onto the sofa with your laptop. You still need to implement a routine and the first step in doing this is designating a zone for work life.
- You must make sure you get the balance right; there is also danger of putting in too many hours or overworking; as improbable as this might sound, imagine that it’s 11pm and you suddenly have a brainstorm about work. It’s all too easy to go into your home office and work until 1am. It’s harder to ‘escape the office’ because in actual fact, you’re already there. Make a specific time for work every day and stick to it. It can get confusing to differentiate between work and home when the two are the same. However, making sure you create a workday for yourself can help your productivity.
- Make sure you’re well-connected. Having a good internet connection is crucial for most businesses and will definitely make working from home a lot easier (the last thing you want is your internet crashing half way through a conference call). Finding a good deal, by looking for internet providers near me, means you can keep costs down, too. Establish your needs and budget then check out what offers are out there. New broadband deals come out pretty much every day.
- Just as internet service is important to just about every at-home job, so is phone service. While this might not be as important, by virtue of email and voice messaging services like Skype, it’s still crucial to have phone service.
- While your desktop might be good for play, you might need to expand your capabilities with some extras. From spreadsheets to manage your accounts, to backup storage for important documents, it might come in handy to have some business-oriented software. Shop around for some of these products; they’ll likely make your life a whole lot simpler.
The flexibility that comes with working from home is becoming more and more popular and really is worth it. If you are married or have children at home, this type of work situation could be especially convenient for you.
