Working From Home

Home Sweet Home?


The majority of people who start small businesses do so by using their homes as offices. This makes a great deal of sense when you consider the cost of leasing even a small office. If you’re lucky enough to have an extra room for an office, you’ll find that your life will be a lot easier than if you are forced to use your bedroom. Those people with studio apartments have it worse because wherever they walk for a moment of relaxation; they are still in their office. Though there are many tax advantages to using a portion of your home as an office, there are many emotional and mental disadvantages and these must be strongly considered before setting up shop at home. If you are young and living at home, or if you are married with children, either way, you will have challenges.


For instance, if you’re the type of person who likes to grab an extra few minutes of sleep in the morning, if you’re the type of person who likes to press the “snooze” button every ten minutes just to squeeze in another couple of minutes of rest, then just try to imagine the trouble you’ll have getting out of bed when you have to stay home to work.


Hey, what’s your rush when you’re already at the office, right? Well, if you were a procrastinator before working at home, you’ll become a bigger and worse procrastinator after a few weeks of self-employment in your bedroom. Without constant motivation to keep moving, you will rapidly find yourself in a rut. So, what’s your motivation to get to work? Simple. If you don’t get out of bed to start work, then you may not have a bed to lie in much longer!


The flip-side to this problem is getting yourself so involved in your work that you do not know how to shut off your energy and stop working at the end of your day. If by chance you bypass this problem, you may have the pleasure of making a new friend – insomnia. With no private place to unwind at the end of the day, you may find yourself staring at the four walls every night as you lie in bed. A bed can become a comfortable place to work, but such actions also act on the unconscious; your mind begins to relate working with your bedroom. The new result is hyperactivity. You become a workaholic, and all you think about is work.


Though you want to maintain a certain degree of being hard on yourself, you do not want to overdo it, so be careful in how and where you set up your home office. If you have a spare room or den, use it instead of your bedroom. If not, be prepared for some new and interesting emotional and physical problems to pop up.


What's The Matter With Kids Today?


I've had the good fortune of working at home twice in my career thus far, first when I lived at home with my Mom when I was in my early 20's, and then more recently when I retired in 2000.


My Mom never understood what I was doing working in my bedroom at all hours of the night. Years later, a similar problem occurred when I worked at home when my children were still very young. They didn't understand why Dad was home either. They supposed it was so I could play with them! Wrong!


Whether you are dealing with parents, girlfriends, wives or your children, you need to establish some ground rules for the home office. You need to determine your work hours (you can be flexible here), your breaks (lunch with loved ones), acceptable interruptions (hugs and kisses), your tolerance for noise, and play time (for you and for them).