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

The ability to sip your favorite coffee and chill out on a comfy sofa with your laptop open answering work emails and being productive while making money at the same time sounds like most people’s idea of a perfect work to home life balance. Working from home has emerged with the advent of agile working. As we have become more interlinked through the use of technology, we now have the luxury of completing work tasks away from the office, whether this is in a cafe, in the park or in our bedrooms. From the little table tucked away in the corner of the coffee house you can have video conference calls with your international colleagues halfway across the world such are the advancements in connectivity. However, are there any pitfalls to working from home and what can we do to avoid them?

Your Own Business

If you work from home because you’ve unleashed your entrepreneurial spirit and you’ve begun an online business, the chances are you relish your newfound freedom. However, you’ve probably quickly realized that the inner motivation you found easy to conjure up in the office is waning at home. Without colleagues in a traditional office environment, targets from head office or a boss breathing down your neck, it can be hard to find the motivation to work from 9 -5 each day.

To combat this, you need to have a weekly plan, detailing all of the objectives that must be achieved by Friday. Ticking them off your list as the week continues will give you the much-needed impetus to complete the remaining tasks. Keeping your strategic business vision displayed somewhere in your home office will inspire you to keep momentum to drive your business forward and achieve your aims.

The Cost

Starting a new business can be lucrative if you need to purchase expensive software to keep up with your more established rivals. One option is to secure one of the many loans available for business start ups. If you head over to personalloan.co, you’ll find a wealth of advice covering everything from business tips to debt to income ratios ensuring that you are clued up before committing to a loan.

The initial outlay may be lucrative. However, the rewards should be vast if you are starting a business that fills a gap in the market. Your commute costs will be minimal and your overheads low. You have faith in your business and can see it succeeding so it might pay to take on some short term debt to achieve your long term goals.

Trust

If colleagues of yours are also working from home, you need to make sure that they are just as committed as you. Agile working can seem great in theory, but it gives the opportunity for those more work shy employees to coast as their colleagues do most of the work. A one-hour lunch break could quickly turn into a two hour trip to a local eatery with friends, and the boss would be none the wiser. It’s vital that there is an ethos of trust and honesty when employing agile working to the workplace.

Working from home is one of the many benefits to working in the technologically advanced twenty-first century. With determination, drive, and commitment, you could reap the financial rewards of agile working.