The (Dis)Advantages of Working From Home
Being a freelancer means you often have complete freedom on where to work. However, we tend to stay at home and work from our beds, dining room tables, a corner in our room, or if we’re lucky enough, a whole room dedicated as an office. What we mostly do not do, is leave our home to work in a separate office or co-working space.
Working from home comes with several advantages after all – no overhead, free range of the kitchen, no dress code and the ability to sleep as late as we want and stroll from the bedroom to our computer.
However, there are also several disadvantages we should be aware of. Distractions from family, children or pets being the biggest issue we come across. Also, walking two feet from our bedroom to our office means we don’t get the exercise we should – and we’re increasingly becoming an unhealthy industry. It also means you lead a distinctly lonely work day - and without a boss breathing down your neck you’re more apt to goof off on the internet.
Even with all of these disadvantages – I still wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world, nor would I bother with paying the high costs of renting an office space. Instead, I’ve aimed to become more productive and turn these into non-issues. How can you do it?
Distractions From Family & Pets
Our biggest issues normally stem from the distractions caused by loved ones. While it’s true that freelancers have a more flexible schedule and can often take more breaks, that doesn’t mean we don’t have strict deadlines of our own. I’ve found myself stopping work in order to play with my dogs or hang spend time with my husband, only to see the whole day go by without any work getting done.
While it may seem rude or inconsiderate to shut out the loved ones, it’s a necessary evil in order to get stuff done. Here are a few tricks that have worked for me (and some my hubby has used against me!):
- Shut the door. If you’re lucky enough to have a whole room dedicated as an office, sometimes it works best to just shut the door and drown out the noise.
- Leave the animals outside. Sometimes my doggies can get a little restless and drive me up the wall when I’m trying to concentrate, so if it’s a nice day out (and you have a fenced in yard), I’d leave them outside a little longer than normal so they can run off the energy and let me work.
- Put on headphones. Nikita uses this trick on me. When he’s trying to concentrate on work and I’m babbling on about nothing, he’ll put on his headphones. Eventually I realize he’s not listening and get tired of having him take off his headphones and repeat myself. Eventually I leave him alone. Not the nicest, but it works!
Pudgy Developers
Nobody likes a fat developer, and since I’ve gone freelance, I’ve notice a huge weight gain. So what have I done to remedy this? I moved across the world to London, where every day I’ve had to walk at least two miles to get anything accomplished.
Of course, that’s not going to work for the majority, or probably anyone else. But it’s important to make some life changes now before you get to the age where you end up having health problems. I like you guys and fully expect all of us to be coding together well into our triple digits!
Of of the main issues of working from home is grazing – I’ve noticed personally that I tend to stray into the cupboards for snack food quite often. If you do this to, go ahead and get rid of the junk food and stock up on healthy snacks and fruits. That why you’re at least eating healthy.
If you’ve got pets, now’s the time to give them some attention. Take a longer lunch and use it to walk them around the block, or play some sports with your kids. Relocate to the city if you can. I know personally that I could never stick to going to the gym or an exercise plan – I had to force myself to work out but working it into my daily routine. I currently live in the city about a mile from any public transport – so even if I decide to be lazy one day and take the subway, I still get 2 miles of exercise. I’ve already noticed a decrease in appetite, weight and general pudgyness since I got here 3 weeks ago.
Lonely – I’m so Lonely
Another difficult disadvantage of working from home is the loneliness. I tend to be a loner anyways so this didn’t bother me too much until I realized I worked so much and so alone, that I didn’t have many friends! I also lived in the middle of nowhere so it was hard to meet up with the friends I had and even harder to find fellow devs and designers to hang with.
Now, I’m finding I have a ton of friends and contacts in the area and am meeting up with one of them almost every day for lunch or dinner. This forces me to get out of the house AND get some exercise. It also helps networking wise, as we can talk about work much easier. Plus, it’s fun to finally get to put faces to twitter avatars, voices or emails.
If you live in an area with a lot of people, you can also try meeting clients in person. I used to be pretty firmly against this, as I felt it wasted too much of my day for little payoff, but I’ve started looking forward to these outings. I get to be social and get out of the house; plus see parts of the city I’ve never been to.I also often get a free lunch (yum!) and I feel better connected to my clients.
If you’re not in an area with a lot of people or clients, try working some place public, like a library or coffeeshop. Just be careful that you’re not in someplace distracting or you won’t get anything done.
Coworking
Coworking spaces are large offices that allow you to rent a desk, or even a whole space. They’re cheaper than actually renting your own office, plus you get to share space with like-minded individuals. Some of these places let you rent by the hour or day; others let you have an actual short lease.
I’ve never done this personally, but have been contemplating doing it once or twice a week here – just got to find a place close enough to be worth it.
What do you do to stay productive at home?
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
Your take on exercise for freelancers is interesting. I actually found it easier to exercise once I went independent. I have found that I work out more when I can do it in the late morning. If I have to get up extra early, I rarely exercise.
Once I went freelance, I could roll out of bed, eat a leisurely breakfast while checking my email and doing some work. Then, when I’m fully awake I work out, and hit the showers. If I was working for someone else in their offices, I could never do this.
And the eating thing has worked better for me too. At an office, I was constantly hitting the snacks that were available. I always ate out – I could never get around to packing myself a healthy lunch. At home, I have more food choices and I keep mostly healthy ones in stock. My less healthy days are the ones where I have lunch with a customer or colleague.
Freelancing has been great for my health and my weight!
LOL Well like everything else – it’s different for everyone! Staying at home has made me lazier – that is, until I moved to London, where I walk EVERYWHERE now. I know lack of exercise is a big issue in our industry.
Many of these resonate with me and I’d agree that’s it’s definitely a good idea to get out of the house, try and meet people, friends, colleagues, clients etc when you can. I’m trying to do more co-working than I used to. Have dipped my toe in the water so to speak but need to do more of it I think. Only disadvantage is the commute since there aren’t many local co-working spaces round here. Will see how it goes!
Oh yea, I just downloaded the iPhone app, LiquidSpace, going to see what options there are as far as coworking goes
Agree with Avonelle, I’m finding great benefits to working from home in that I can go for a run/exercise anytime I want; plus it actually BOOSTS my productivity for the day. It allows for time to reflect, brainstorm, and let the ideas flow. Amazing.
Being stuck in an office usually leads to immense frustration and can only be totally draining when I’m trying too hard to force creativity and inspiration and it just won’t come to me.
I’m glad to hear of that then, I know of too many people (me included!) who find it tough to remove themselves from the desk when it’s sitting there in your house, just a few steps away
I hear you on that one, too. Exercise is when my brain cooks up the ideas. Sitting at my desk is when I execute them. I can’t not exercise.
I’m fighting the loneliness by resolving to go to more meet ups with other designers, WordPressers, marketers, etc. It’s great to meet others who do similar things and have similar lifestyles. And you can get great ideas from doing this.
That’s what I’ve been doing lately, so much better than sitting at home
Biggest thing that distracts me is the internet, so sometimes I just “agree with myself” that for a certain amount of time a day, I just work without checking it at all. Works for me
…most times.
LOL I tried that…and lost!
While I am no where near freelancing, it is what I am aiming at. Working from home sounds fantastic, but I think I would get a better satisfaction out of actually going to work. Not to mention my four kids; talk about distraction!
Nice post Amber. I think exercise is one of the bigger problems. Most of us know how good that feeling is after we work out, but still don’t do it as often as we should. This is one of my 2012 goals. After a workout you not only feel a lot more alive, but you actually think better and accomplish more in that state of mind.
I think we just get so caught up in work and trying to keep up with the web, we forget there’s a whole real world out there.
I’m similar to you Amber, when I’m working at home I don’t tend to leave the house although two days of every week usually I do have the luxury of getting out and working at an office for a design agency which is a nice change of scenery. Also twice a week I play football (soccer
) which is good a way to relieve stress, socialise and stay active.
Ah nice! Joining a sports team is a good idea
Hi Amber, I’ve just found your blog and have read this post with interest. I happily worked from home as a freelancer for at least 6 years but 4 months ago I took the big step to renting some office space, which is just 1 mile down the road from my home. Personally, I would never go back to working from home and here is why (briefly)…
I think working from home is great, but only while other things in life are going well. I went through a period of health anxiety which was made worse by working alone everyday and being left with my own irrational thoughts. This period also made me realise that I saw my home predominantly as a 24 hour work place and so I never truly relaxed at home. When I’d finished a days work I just wanted to get out of the house and enjoy the fresh air, but in contrast my partner was happy to get home from work and relax. What would usually happen though is that I’d return to my computer after tea rather than spending quality time with my partner.
I now love having my own office, I have colleagues nearby and I can pop into town for a coffee or to have a chat with clients. I now also look forward to going back to my home rather wanting to be elsewhere.
A lot of people think working from home is the golden ticket, but it’s certainly not for everyone. I still have the very odd day working from home and I’ll certainly spend some time working from the garden in the summer
I’m a strong believer in ‘healthy body, healthy mind’, so I’d highly recommend everyone taking the time out to exercise in the great outdoors. I’m lucky enough to live next to a forest, so mountain biking is my passion and without it I’m absolutely convinced my work would suffer.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend against working from home, but people should be conscious of their own behaviour to ensure they don’t slip into a lifestyle that lacks socialising, exercise and a relaxing home environment.
Oh, and there was nothing wrong with my health
That’s a fantastic idea! My husband, who works from home now too, is wanting to rent an office. I really love our office here though, so we’ll see what happens in the next couple of months