Benefits of Working From Home

May 4, 2006 on 10:28 am | In Entrepreneur |

Now that the initial full time developement drive is finished for the project that enabled me to become a full time entrepreneur is over, I have had to devote my time to other income sources. So for the last couple of weeks I have been ProBlogging on my other websites. And of course, by doing this, I have been working from home and finding some great benefits of this working environment.

Here are 5 benefits of working from home:

Choose your own hours - I have no choice if that I am an early riser. I have two sons aged 3 and 1. They are always awake and wanting to get up between 5.30 and 6.00 AM. I get up and make them breakfast, then my wife gets up and I start work. By doing this I can do a complete days work by early afternoon. If I want to finish earlier, then I just do a bit of work in the evening. I normally do a bit of work in the evening anyway as I tend to get some good ideas at this time. Mid to late afternoon has always been a dead and unproductive work time for me, so it is more beneficial if I use this time for chores, errands and fun.
Get to see more of your family - As I mentioned above, I make breakfast for my kids and we all sit around the table to eat it. Then I get to sit with them when I take a break, and sometimes I will drop my son off and pick him up from Kindergarten. I’m also there in the evening for dinner where we all sit around the table to eat.
Save money - No buying coffees from the local cafe. No unhealthy and expensive takeaways. There are also lots of other ways to save by working from home. First of all there are the home office expenses you can use to reduce your tax bill (most peoples biggest expense). Then there are all the other little things like travel, laundry and time. (time is not strictly and expense, but since time is money, I have included it here ;))
Maintain sanity - No more office politics! This ranks up there as one of my biggest dislikes of the regular working environment. However, some may say (myself included sometimes) that prolonged exposure to small children is not good for your sanity :). This was one of my greatest concerns about working from home, since my children are here most of the day. However, it has worked out fine. They seem to understand that I have to work and don’t bother me too much when I’m in my office.
Save time - As far as I’m concerned, time is a precious commodity. I don’t want to spend my whole time working. I want to spend time with my family and doing things that I enjoy. Working from home certainly frees up time for these activities since I don’t have to travel to work (saving about 1 hour a day) and don’t have to spend so much time doing things like ironing and shaving to get ready for work. I am also free to experiment with a theory that I have read about only working between 4 and 6 hours a day - subconciously forcing myself to make every minute count of this time. More on this at a later date.

I’m sure many readers here also work from home. If you know of any other advantages, feel free to leave a comment or trackback in a post at your blog.

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Notions on Working At Home: What I Did Wrong and How You Can Learn From My Mistakes…

I’ve just completed a week of really intense project hopping and so it was extremely timely that I happened upon 2 great posts last night which helped me so that I can avoid this in the future. The first post…

Trackback by A Look at Art — May 7, 2006 #
As a WAHD myself (that’s Work-At-Home Dad), I echo your sentiments about working from home and balancing family life with work. To me, the benefits far outweigh the challenges. And my job for Know More Media is so fun that I rarely feel like I’m even at work!

I hear ya about the getting up early. My boy gets me up at around 7 or 8 unless I get up first :).

Comment by Easton Ellsworth — May 12, 2006 #
I wholeheartedly agree with working from home. We worked out of our home and ran a 6Million dollar business, until one day our neighbor decided we shouldn’t do this and the city agreed. We thought it was time to get an office anyway, what a mistake. Working from home is the way of the future, I’m doing this remotely right now. Having a general meetig place and specific days for meetings is really what an office is needed for. With communications capabilities today, why should 1000 people jump in their vehichles and drive every day, sometimes 1-2 hrs each way. What a waste. Remote access and communicatiosn capabilities make the home office the only real office.

Comment by Kevin — May 14, 2006 #
Kevin, I agree with what you say about taking advantage of communications capabilities. My business partner and I spent all of friday working from the a library and various cafes - we both only have home offices - but because we had a meeting on the other side of town, we decided to just stay there and work.

I find it surprising how productive you can be working from cafes with wireless. I also find it surprising how many people I mention it to find it odd. Oh well, more space in the cafes for the rest of us… especially when theres only so many power outlets to go around

Comment by Dominic — May 14, 2006 #
[…] A look at Art and Design The Art and Design is written in a easy manner, centred on the design community, and points to discussions I can use. For instance, I work at home and her article Notions on Working At Home: What I Did Wrong and How You Can Learn From My Mistakes took me to Jason Fried’s How to shut up and get to work, then over to Darren Rowse’s The Work at Home Entrepreneur which sent me to Dominic Foster’s Benefits of Working From Home. […]

Pingback by Designers who Blog: Design, Illustration, Photography, Web, Advertising, Branding … — May 23, 2006 #
[…] Benefits of Working From Home by Dominic Foster… A worthwhile article on the benefits of working at home. […]

Pingback by Working at Home on the Internet » Blog Archive » This Weeks Helpful Reads…Week 4 — June 26, 2006 #
I absolutely agree. I became a consultant years ago — before I even had a family — because I wanted to be able to have that work-life balance. Now that I have a family, I can’t imagine what life would be like if I had to go to an office every day. I believe in work-life balance so much that I blog about it a lot!

Comment by Andrea >> Become a Consultant Blog — September 11, 2006 #
I absolutely agree. I decided to become a consultant years ago — before I even had a family — because I wanted to be able to have that work-life balance. Now that I have a family, I can’t imagine what life would be like if I had to go to an office every day. I believe in work-life balance so much that I blog about it a lot!

Comment by Andrea >> Become a Consultant Blog — September 11, 2006 #
Unfortunately, while working at home SOHO there are as many distractions as there are time saving options … such as Bloglines, YouTube, keeping up with industry news and forums, Instant Messengers/Skype .. etc etc.

I started working at home in March 2003. I figured by the end of 2004 I would be able to afford to close the doors, and take Fridays off .. and by 2005 my work hours would be down to about 5-6 hours per day on that 4 day week (doing online business as well). Of course, then I started blogging in May 2005 and that changed that. I’m getting as much done as before, but finding that instead of taking days off .. I’m working all night or working weekends just to keep up or catch up.

It was a terrible summer for me. 3 day weekends at the beach with no internet and 5 day weeks crammed into 3-1/2 days in between. But, it’s always fun, right?

Comment by HART (1-800-HART) — September 21, 2006 #