I've been learning over the past few weeks about the splendor of working at home. At first, it wasn't splendor as much as chaos, but I think I'm starting to figure it out. There are many perks to working from home but there are also challenges. The key, I believe, is to finding the balance and in the end - just enjoying life! Here is what I have discovered:
Great Things About Working at Home...
1. Flexible Schedule - when I began my "real world" career a couple years back, I thought I would absolutely love working in an office setting. I'm a very structured, scheduled person so to me - 8 to 5 was perfect! I knew exactly what my days would look like and could stop thinking about work as soon as I left the office. Then the obvious happened, I got bored. And I missed having time in my day to do non-work things, like have lunch with a friend. Now, I can do that and it's great! I can even take a longer lunch and avoid stopping her mid-sentence to say, "I've gotta go back to work."
2. Casual Dress Code - While I did enjoy the cute, yet expensive, business attire I was required to wear at the office, nothing... and I mean nothing... beats spending the first few hours of the day in pajama pants! If all I'm doing in the morning is responding to emails and surfing for the latest industry info, nobody cares what I'm wearing. Of course, there is the occasional embarrassing UPS delivery - ah well, he'd probably do it too if he could.
3. Daytime House Cleaning/ Shopping Trips - Can you relate when I say that I cannot get anything done around the house when my husband is home (plus two college guys who we house)? It's not because he makes a big mess or anything, more because when he's home I just want to hang out with him! Therefore, having an empty house during the day has made it much easier to do a load of laundry, vacuum, or make a run to the grocery store.
4. Quality Time With The Dog - Ok, so we don't have kids yet and I don't treasure moments spent with our dog, though he is pretty cute! But it is nice to be able to take him for walks and I feel better about not leaving him at home alone all the time. This perk will probably be even greater when we have kids and I am able to spend quality time with them - rather than being away from home 9 hours a day.
All of these things are great, but there still are some challenges I am facing...
Not-So-Great Things About Working At Home:
1. Managing a Spontaneous Schedule - Some people are great at this because they are naturally spontaneous. I, however, am not. As stated previously, I am a very structured, "plan everything down to the minute" type person. Being at home has meant that my day is not set for me and it is up to me to make a schedule. It's been getting better but I still have trouble allotting time to the most important task rather than filling my time with less productive activities.
2. Money is Tight - Hopefully this won't always be the case but most of the time, when working at home it means you either started your own business or are paid by commission. Mine is the latter. Getting started is rough and we've had a few short-handed months but we see great potential in the future. A piece of advice if you are looking to start an at-home business - save a few months' salary first.
3. Easily Distracted - This goes along with scheduling but at home it's a lot easier to get distracted away from work by household chores, friends/family, and just surfing the web or television. My goal each day is to set a specific amount of time that I will "work" and focus on nothing but my task list for that time (which usually goes over because of pop-up emails and phone calls). After I have completed those things, I am more free to do other "non-work" items. The system is still progressing... certainly not perfected.
4. Motivation - Working at home definitely requires one to be self-motivated. I would like to think I am a very self-motivated person, but there are tasks that I just hate to do. So it's hard to put effort into those things, I usually have to break these tasks down into pieces and say to myself, "just focus on this part, that's all." It sometimes works. Sometimes I just need someone to yell in my ear, suck it up, and do the not fun things that I need to do.
Overall, I'm finding that life is better when you are able to choose to spend more time doing the things you love. I've found that I would much rather get stuff done and then go about my non-work business rather than spending 8 hours in an office, making up projects in order to pass the time.
So thanks for the blessing, Lord! I will try very hard to do it well :)
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