Reader Question - Working from Home
February 15, 2008 · Print This Article
Why would it be valuable to work from home?
Lets say you commute 30 minutes to work each day. Working from home will save you at least 5 hours per week of drive time. If you apply this time to your job, you should be able to pull ahead of people who have to invest those 5 hours in driving to work. You can also choose to invest those extra 5 hours in sleep, your family, a hobby or whatever you like.
Sometimes working from home can help you focus. Being out of the office means it is more difficult for people to distract you–they can’t just pop into your office or cubicle. Of course if your home work environment is distracting, you may not see much benefit.
If you want to know more about working from home checkout this post: Convince Your Boss to Let you Work from Home
On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.
I have a 40 minute commute (living in one of the rural suburbs of Buffalo). Wish I could convince my boss to let me do even 1 day per week from home (I’ve always been his crutch/go-to guy). At home my internet is faster, my computer is faster, I have a decent printer/scanner/fax. Heck I’d even make my own coffee to save the office money (small office and I’m the only coffee drinker). I’ll have to read your other post…looking for more arguments to use.
When we started eduFire one of the goals was to give people (in our case people tutoring languages) more of their days back. We talked to teachers and many of them were spending 1, 2 or even 3 hours a day in their cars. By tutoring online through eduFire they’ve now just saved that time, the gas money and, as one tutor recently pointed out, the environmental footprint. Works pretty well for them!
The big disadvantage in working at home is that you are not able to develop the same personal connections and relationships over the phone that you are able to in face-to-face communication.
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While those 5 hours definitely add up, the productivity gained by having people who are willing to help you out in a tough (or not tough) situation is very important.
I personally agree that when working from home, I get lot more done in relatively short time. I save more time apart from the commute time itself. But based on the nature of the job, not everyone can work from home all five days. I try to do that at least once a week, so does my boss, he understands the benefits, so I don’t need to convince him
In my case working from home saves me money. I no longer have to purchase clothes every other week! A big savings indeed…
As mentioned above I also get a lot done in a short space of time, that way I can spend evenings with my son and take up work late at night again.
@Crystal - I use a device called a washing machine that has helped cut my clothing purchases dramatically. They can be expensive, but are well worth it because they allow you to reuse your clothing more than once.
Seriously though, new clothes every two weeks? Where did you work?
Mark, I’ve heard of that device.
Unfortunately I went through a period of pick myself up Mondays where I really needed to feel happy about taking a train in rush hour, being poked and shoved in order to get to a job I was beginning to resent.
My solution was to get dressed up in something new. Somehow it seemed to work for a few hours at least. Besides there is something about living in New York and working in the financial district that urged me to always look my best. I wonder how many people can relate to that…
It seems fickle now that I am out of it.
I work from home the majority of the time and my biggest problem is motivation and time management. What Merlin Mann describes as finding yourself surfing wikipedia at 2am covered in pizza crumbs. One major problem is that I have so many cool distractions at home. It is easy to waste huge chunks of time.
I am a hell of a lot better at this than I was, mainly by focussing on completing tasks, rather than working for a set period of time. However this is, for me, the hardest part of not being in the office.