Work At Home

Well as titles go, it is probably stating the obvious to a lot of people because there are lots of reasons to work at home and make money doing so!

So, let’s take the bull by the horns and look at why you would want to work at home at all and then take the pros and cons for and against.

So why does anyone want to work at home?

I mean being able to make money while you work at home as an alternative to working at an office, or factory, or construction site, or driving a public service vehicle, or a taxi, or a train, or selling stuff door to door or working in a shop or department store etc. In other words working at something that takes you away from your home for however many hours a day, so many days a week.

Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that you straight away save time that you’d otherwise spend commuting to and from your job. In many cases that can account for upwards of an hour or two every day. That time can be spent sleeping an extra hour if you need it, or doing some morning exercise or taking the dogs for a walk, or if you want, start work earlier and get more done.

When you take the commuting time out of the daily equation, you have that time back to yourself so you get to choose how you’re going to spend it.

That’s the first plus point on the side of being able to work at home.

There is no minus point unless you actually enjoy commuting back and forth to a job every day. No, I didn’t think so!

The next nice thing about being able to work at home is you get to choose your own working hours. Now that doesn’t mean you can just sit at your desk and doodle on a sheet of paper for a couple of hours and then say to yourself “That’s enough for today” and then go out for the rest of the day! You have to exercise a little self discipline and still do a day’s work – but the length of your working day is flexible, especially if you are truly working for yourself and not for a company that allows you to work at home. In the latter case, you would still have to put in the eight or so hours a day – the difference is that you could probably choose when those hours are.

When you work at home for yourself, running your own business, then your hours are your choice. All you need to bear in mind is if you don’t put enough effort into it, your business could suffer.

So the plus points when you work at home are you choose your working schedule rather than having to work a rigid nine to five in an office. The minus points are if you are not very self disciplined you might not do your allotted hours and risk your job or your own business.

The next argument for and against about being able to work at home is people. When you work at home, you will often be isolated from anyone except your family. In an office environment you have work colleagues that you will socially interact with and if you are a sociable person you will lose out when you work at home. So there’s a minus point unless you prefer your own company and are happy working alone.

Lets sum up what we have so far.

When you work at home you have the freedom from commuting and rigid working hours and as such you have more of your own time to yourself, whereas if you are a sociable person you will lose out on the social camaraderie of working with others. Of course there are plenty of work at home opportunities for you to get started on which you’ll find by looking for verifiable sources.

If you work at home you are less stressed out by travelling to and from a job and can take a break when you want, not when a boss says you can. Don’t forget that if you are a social type, then you are more likely to get your job done quicker at home in isolation then have more time free for going out in the evenings and socializing!

Personally, I think the pros far outweigh the cons when you work at home. Even more so when you are your own boss and know that every hour that you put in is for you and not to make someone else rich while you’re paid peanuts!

Terry Didcott
Work at Home

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