Home Office

For people that work from home there are both advantages and disadvantages of that. Recently I have been finding some of both and figured it was time to try and document some of them.

Advantages

• The commute time to the office is basically zero unless you end up in a conversation on the way to your desk.
• The interruptions from other individuals is limited especially when your office is at home and there is only one other person that can interrupt you.
• Cost of eating lunches out is limited because you are close to the normal things that you like eating so don’t have to go and grab something at a fast food restaurant.
• Work is close for the times that you figure out the issue and it will only take a minute or two to solve it. Yes, both an advantage and disadvantage.
• The ability to focus on a task is normally good as there aren’t all the distractions from other individuals wanting a bit of your time. You can limit the distractions by muting your phone and also not checking email sometimes.

Disadvantages

• If you live in an apartment, when do they do the maintenance on the meters, heaters, etc. That is during the day so you are impacted when there isn’t any power, heat or water.
• Lunch ideas start to get boring because there are the same choices quite often especially when you are busy and don’t want to stop working to make something.
• Your interaction with people is limited because you are either at home alone doing your work or you are talking to the same person to talk to in the evenings.
• Work is too close when there is an issue and it can impact your free time because it will only take a minute or two to solve that people that has been bothering you. Also an advantage.
• Your personal hobbies are too close to where your office is so that can sometimes be a distraction but you have to learn to manage it.
• People don’t think you really work when you say your office is at home and are always available to assist them or others.

Having a home office can be very enjoyable because it gives you the freedom of being able to work when you want to work. It also makes it a little challenging sometimes when people figure that you can just drop what you are doing to help them on an issue that isn’t work related. Family members sometimes can be the worst people because they figure just because they go to an office and you don’t, you can assist with everything.

It is interesting when you talk to people about working from a home office because some people think it is wonderful and others don’t know how we do it. Of course, there are the times when personal life gets in the way of work but I think that can happen even when you go into an office. Personal issues can be a distraction either way so it is just managing them when people know you are just a phone call away. Managing the expectations of others especially when it comes to personal time is very important.

Work does come first quite often during the day but then when there is that emergency you can handle it knowing that the office isn’t going to complain that you were late arriving or you left early. The office will be there and in a lot of cases the work will still get done and no one outside our own office space will know that the work didn’t get done until the evening. If you work with clients, you may have to let them know that an emergency came up and you may not be quite as responsive for a bit of time but in a lot of cases they just want the work completed and the deadlines met.

A home office can be really nice when it is set up correctly. Know what you need to do your job and make sure that the other distractions aren’t too close by. If a personal hobby is within reach of your desk maybe it is time to move that hobby away so that you can’t just pick it up and do it.