Working from a home office

Pros and cons of working from a home office.

Travel time – extremely low 

Is the office in the main part of your home or separate? Having a separate area is great because you can walk away from the area. There is basically no commute time to work which means that you don’t have traffic issue or such, but it is important to still prepare yourself as if you are going into some sort of office. Some people just spend their time in their office as if they are at home and run around in pyjamas and for men unshaven for days. This can result in lower productivity because of the relaxed feeling the person is achieving.

Chance of getting distracted – high

Some people don’t consider working from home working. Some friends or family don’t understand that even if you are at home during work hours, you are working. People figure your time is your time, and you can schedule anything during the day because you aren’t “working” because you don’t have an office to go to. Mondays in the IT world is a day when most don’t schedule meetings because it’s the day that issues can come up most often, basically issues that have not been seen over the weekend. In our business, we don’t normally schedule client work for Monday’s unless it is to support weekend work.

Interaction with others – low

There are no areas where co-workers meet and talk things over. The interaction with others can be extremely low and, in some cases, it can be hard to deal with because there are times when interaction is important. Depending on your job, sometimes having someone to bounce ideas off can be useful.

Distractions/interruptions can be limited

Without other workers around, there is less of a chance of distractions. The unnecessary chit-chat that happens in an office environment doesn’t happen with a home office because there are fewer, if any, co-workers.

Home and work life intermix

Without having a separate office, both work and home can interfere with each other. It is very important that sometimes you can walk away from the office part of life and enjoy the person time and vice versa. It is amazing how many times I have gone onto the computer to do some personal stuff and think of a work thing that will only take fives minutes. That five-minute job ends up being a lot more than that because I figure while I’m doing that one thing I might as well do this other thing and so on, and so on until hours have passed.

Flexibility

Having the opportunity to work when you need to but also being able to be flexible can come in handy. Not all work can be accomplished based on a structured work day, so having the ability to work when there is work and for any given length of time does help. Some days the hours are going to be longer than a normal way day, but then other days will be shorter. Another advantage is you can work when you are able and in most cases there is no one watching what time you show up, take lunch or leave.

Summary

There are both pros and cons of having a home office, and you can figure out if it works for you. I know that during Covid, a lot of people were working from a home office and some have found that they love it and others were happy to return to the office.