I decided after completing 7 months of working from home as my new lifestyle, I could comment on the pros and cons. I think as most people do if they think about working from home they think "This is going to be awesome! I don't see any down sides to this at all." I thought the same thing when first presented the option. Things I thought would be really cool were:
- I can be as comfortable as I want to be. Throw on sweats, jeans, baseball caps, whatever. No dress code to adhere to, and people not invading what little space I can call my own.
- I can save money on food, and finally eat well. No worries about brown bagging it when you have a full kitchen steps away.
- I can setup my office however I want. No approval process to go through. I don't have to submit for a new chair if I don't like mine, I just buy another! I can put whatever artwork I want up, and can listen to music as loud as I want. I can even put a tv directly next to my computer monitor if I so chose to do. No would can tell me "you can't do that".
- I don't have to wake up hours before work and deal with a crappy commute stuck in traffic or on a train or a bus, or fighting off the elements. I roll out of bed and walk up a flight of stairs.
- Basically general freedom as I haven't professionally had before.
Here are some of the real truths though:
- I often work longer hours then I ever have before.
People will tell you that you need to draw boundaries between work space and home space when working at home. You think that would be the case because you would be tempted by your other distractions. Like playing XBox in the middle of the day, or watching a movie or tv show, who knows. The fact is for me it was completely opposite. You need to separate work space from home space so you don't feel like you are at work all the time! When work is only steps away, it is easy to get into the mind set of "I still need to do this, or that, or I can get a head start on this, etc..." It never ends. People with Blackberries can relate to this somewhat in that you are never really out of reach. Take that to another level where you are not only never really out of reach, you are within steps of being completely submerged in your office. You do so because that is where you can be the most productive, but it's easy to keep doing so during what should be your downtime to recharge.
- My diet has gone crazy, and I've put on at least 10 pounds.
Again, it isn't what you think. I am not at home overindulging because I am around all my favorite foods all the time. Instead I get so busy working I forget to eat! When I was in an office there was always someone stopping by going "What are you doing for lunch". It pulled me out of the office for a small break, and gave me a regular eating time. That has completely stopped. Do this for long enough and your body stops sending its regular signals on when you should be eating. Here is what happens (I believe). I am no doctor, but have read enough things about this that I believe this to be true. When you don't eat enough, or regularly, your body's metabolism slows down because it is reserving its energy as it doesn't know when the next meal is coming. By the way, reserving energy = food stored to fat. When eating this way you also end up taking more food in during a single serving then your body wants at one time so that goes to fat too. Eating is a discipline, at least for me. My New Year's goal is really just to eat regularly. When I eat regularly with normal portions, my body starts to tell me when it's 12 O'Clock because my stomach wants food. As odd as it sounds, 12pm is now marked with an alarm on my Outlook as a daily task called "Lunch". I don't schedule meetings during that time if possible, and since I work remotely other people will see I'm busy if they try to invite me to one. After a week of this, my stomach is back to telling me "time to eat!".
- Working from the comfort of home means cleaning up more
I will go ahead and admit that inherently I am a really lazy person when it comes to cleaning up. I don't live in filth, but man does it take self motivation for me to stay on top of things. When you are home all day working, your time is spent working not cleaning! So you make a mess at lunch, make more trash from printouts and mail, have bottles of water or soda that you are drinking during the day, it all adds up. These are messes you didn't have to deal with at your house before when you were away at work all day! I miss the cleaning service I used to have at the office. In the morning I came into work and my trash was emptied and the floor was vacuumed. At the moment I am looking at a trashcan that is completely overflowed with paper and empty yogurt cups from my afternoon snacks. Someone please take my trash out! Oh wait, that is me now...
On the positive, I was able to setup an office the way I would setup an office. I have exactly the phone I want, the computer screen I want, the desk I want, the chair I want, the color walls I want, the artwork I want, and the music I want. Some of my other additions are a fridge in the office for my snacks and beverages, a water cooler (although talk is slow around it, rumor has it the cat is going to nap all day today), and a tv that I generally keep with the news on in the background.
- Going stir crazy. It probably runs in spells, but it will happen.
When you work from home, you can conceivably not leave your house for days on end! At least prisoners get time in the yard. You have to force yourself out if possible to be a part of the world. It is very easy to see nothing but your home if not careful, and then you start going batty and writing blogs about what it's like working from home.
- Interacting with real people is important
I have a phone glued to my ear all day long, so it's not that I don't get to speak with people, but I don't get to interact with people in person. In an office you will see 10-20+ coworkers in a day. Some you may speak too regularly, some hardly ever. However you see them change, their hair style, their clothing choices for the day, or you know it's their birthday because someone put a balloon up in their cube. You get none of that at home. Thank goodness I have a wife, a cat, and a bird to remind me there are other living things in my world.
- Letting yourself go isn't as appealing in real life as it may seem on paper
The idea of waking up and not shaving one day, or even not showering sounded so great. What freedom! It was like living a weekend everyday! I can live with myself this way, it will be great. No it's not. It was cool for a bit, but it ain't cool anymore. It's like going to an exotic vacation, you think how great it would be to live there because you enjoyed doing it so much for that short time. Only to realize that the magic of it all is that you kept it to a short time. It makes you want to go back. Don't shower or shave for a while, see how soon you want to go back to that.
I suppose in the world there are people who will take advantage of a situation like working from home, but it is very important to me to do a good job. I haven't reached the top level of my career, so I want to impress my bosses and clients more than ever so the quality of my work is very important to me. Working from home does eliminate a lot of work place distractions and allows me to be significantly more productive. I do not get interrupted nearly as much, and I'm not sucked into idle chit chat. Although there is a fair amount of trust I think from an employer that is needed to allow a worker to work remotely, but I think the gains are huge for the employer when the marriage is right.
- I finally know what my UPS guy looks like
Since I'm home, I can receive shipments, have the cable guy come over to install the new cable box, whatever. These little things often caused me to take a personal day or beg to work from home for a day with my past employer. No issues when you work from home.
This is more of a household choice, but I now take my wife to and from work most days except when I am traveling. It is a choice we made to save a few bucks as the round trip is only about 3 miles, and the gas costs less then any public transportation would and the ride for her is a heck of a lot more comfortable. I don't mind saying though over the summer this was a bit easier. Today I put the key in the car and my car told me it was 14 degrees outside, and I thought what the heck am I doing. Truthfully it is good though as it keeps my schedule regular too and I start work as soon as I get home which is generally at 8am.
- A corporate firewall isn't watching my every internet move
This was a pet peeve of mine at my old job. They actually put surf control hardware/software in place on their firewall that monitored how long you were on the web and cut you off after a period. It also blocked a lot of web pages. Sure, at the end of the day they pay the internet bill and if they don't want bandwidth being sucked up by streaming audio stations, I can understand. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. It's hard not to feel like a 5 year old with those kinds of controls are in place. Guess what? Now if someone sends me that funny YouTube clip that will take all of 30 seconds for me to watch, I can do so without a firewall reporting me to someone or blocking it all together.
Some things I am going to try going forward:
- Work from Starbucks or something similar from time to time. Change it up. It forces you to clean up, be presentable to the world, changes the scenery, and shows you there are living things outside the walls of your house. It may also make you appreciate your home working conditions a bit more making your home days more fun again.
- Meet friends for lunch. My old job is only a mile away, I still know a lot of people there. I can easily meet them for lunch to get out of the house.
- Keep the laptop in the office and call it a day at 6pm. Now some days this isn't possible for me as I work with international clients, and my home office is West coast. But if possible like someone who must rush out to catch the 6pm train so they can get home, I will do the same. Leave the outstanding work for the next day, it will still be there. Work smarter, and wrap things up by 6pm. Then turn off work like most people, maybe only occasionally checking for important messages on the pda, like most office workers do when they get home.
Who knows, maybe my views will change on this again in a few months. Something tells me this is a bit of a journey anyway.
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