Working From Home: Is It Everything It’s Cracked Up To Be?

Everybody, it seems, wants to be their own boss and work from home. And for certain, there is a long list of benefits to being in this position. You can work when you like, there is no commute, and the only dress code is the one you invent for yourself. But what’s it like on the other side of the coin? Below, we take a look at four drawbacks to working from home you might want to consider before taking the plunge.

Finding Motivation

If you turned up at a regular office job and spent the first two hours of your day playing online games, then you probably wouldn’t last too long in that job. If you do that when you work at home, well, there’s nobody there to tell you off. There are some days where you’ll wake up and think “I don’t quite feel like it today”. Being able to stay in bed is one of the benefits, but you’ll need to keep in mind that not working is going to cost you business. As such, you need to be a steady self-starter if you’re going to do your own thing.

A Safety Net

Your worries, when you have a regular job, are slight. You turn up at work, do your thing, and then leave. All the things to do with growth, or fights with contractors, or all the other external issues have nothing to do with you. You can just trust that someone will take care of it. When you work from home, and you’re your own boss, you don’t have this safety net: it’s all you. As such, it’s important that you have working from home business insurance; it’ll offer crucial protection when things go wrong and prevent you from being exposed. There’s also no safety net of salary: you’ll only get what you can create yourself!

Trying to “Switch Off”

Do you work from home, or sleep at work? When your business is also the place you relax, you might find it hard to sink into those joyful after work moments, especially if your laptop is still open and you can see your unfinished work staring back at you. It can be difficult to “switch off”, but it’s not impossible. The key is to commit to an endpoint for your working day. Once that time comes, it’s time to shut down the computer and get on with the rest of your life.

Finding Room For Growth

It’s also worth thinking about how working from home will fuel your career growth. You won’t have the same access to conferences, inspiring talks, ideas from the workplace, and so on. You’ll have to do all of these things yourself; if you don’t, you might find that you’re behind the times in your industry.

There is, undoubtedly, a lot of benefits to working from home. And all of the problems we’ve mentioned above can be overcome with a bit of effort. Make sure you’re aware of the potential pitfalls and do your best to rectify them.

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