The ability to work from home is very tempting. Now more than ever it is a reality for a lot of people. Being your own boss, setting your own hours and not having to deal with endless meetings are all very attractive benefits of a home-based business.
Yet, not all is rosy when you actually start working for yourself. There are some cons to working from home.
For most people, it is still going to be worth it, but it is helpful to know some of the pitfalls.
Here are some of the downsides to working from a home office.
Work and home life balance
The most obvious downside is also part of the upside. Thatis, when are you at home and not at work when you work from home?
Though the commute is very nice, you need to set some boundaries between work time and home time.
It can be as simple as tracking your work time with the Quickbooks timesheet and basically clock out when you sit down to watch TV.
As nice as it is to save money on lunch by eating at home, you may want to take your lunch outside to a park for a quick picnic just to break up your day.
Being isolated
When you are your own boss, coworker, janitor and company snack provider it can get very lonely.
You may find yourself missing some of that office drama that you used to hate so much. The fact is that many home based entrepreneurs suffer some form of depression at some point.
To combat this problem, it’s important to schedule frequent downtime. Take up some hobbies for after work and go for walks during the day when you start feeling down.
Easily distracted
With nobody to hold you accountable but yourself, it is very easy to find yourself watching cat videos on Youtube when you should be working. Drowning out the distractions is so hard to do when you are working by yourself.
Try using some website blocking software to take the temptation away from browsing the internet when you should be working.
Keep the shades open to let in as much light as possible to not feel like you are cooped up and are able to maintain focus.
Procrastination
Your friend is on vacation and wants you to come out for the day. That proposal to a potential client seems like it can wait until tomorrow.
These are the things that are so hard to resist. Since you don’t have a set schedule it is easy to find time to do the fun stuff and hard to find time for the drudgery of actual work.
Make sure to stick with a schedule and only play when you have finished the important stuff. In fact, that downtime is a nice reward for sticking with the routine. Give yourself something to look forward to for when you are tempted to delay the work that will end up piling up.
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Contributed content
Founder Dinis Guarda
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