Working from home can be a boon for your wallet and your quality of life. You trade the hassles and expense of commuting for an environment that can be ideal for getting things done.
Or not. Some people can’t function without bosses breathing down their necks, and others find the distractions of home — televisions, undone laundry, no one to track where they’re surfing — too overwhelming.
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I started telecommuting part time in the mid-1990s and went full time in 2002. My workload includes three columns a week, numerous side projects and four books — three published and another due out in January. I’m also a wife, a mother and a volunteer, so the whole work-life balance thing is pretty important.I have a few insights on how to make working at home work. They include:
1. Make your space a work-only zone. Separating your work space from the rest of the household isn’t just good for your productivity — it’s essential if you want to take a home-office deduction.
(The rules on that are tricky, by the way — you can find a summary here — and you have to repay some of the tax break when you sell your home. And if you’re an employee working at home at your own request, rather than your employer’s convenience, you’re excluded from taking a home-office deduction. For more, see “The tax traps of working at home.”)
You don’t necessarily need a whole room to yourself, but you should choose a space you can devote exclusively to work so you can “arrive” there in the morning and “leave” at night. I like that sense of separation because it allows me to focus on work during work time and on family once the workday is done. 2. Invest in good tools. For most of us knowledge workers, that means a decent office chair, a big computer monitor (or two or three) and a fast Internet connection. A quality headset is a good purchase if you spend a lot of time on the phone. Since you probably don’t have a big company server backing up your data, you also need to get an external hard drive and set up automatic backups. An online backup service can be a lifesaver as well; Mozy recently bailed me out after my laptop hard drive crashed during a business trip. If you’re self-employed, find yourself a good computer tech to help you with the inevitable snafus all this technology brings.
3. It’s OK to do housework. I have a strict rule against turning on the TV before the end of the workday, but brief stints of housework can be just the breaks I need to think or beat minor writer’s block. The key word here is “brief.” Emptying the dishwasher is OK; reorganizing the closet is not. Anything more than three minutes and I’m procrastinating, so it’s back to the desk.
4. Choose your interruptions. You’re less vulnerable to interruptions than when you were exposed to the office elements in a cubicle farm, but the phone will ring, the e-mail will chime, and people will knock on your door. You need to decide which interruptions you’ll accept and which you’ll ignore.
Someone knocking on my door these days usually walks away unacknowledged, unless it’s a neighbor; I don’t have time to debate religion with pamphlet-wielding disciples or fend off magazine sale crews. Similarly, I shut down instant-message functions in all their permutations. I know some people love IM’ing, but I don’t want to be that accessible. Finally, I adore caller ID. I pick up for the important folks — my husband, the school nurse, the source I’ve been chasing all day and, of course, my editor — and let the rest go to voice mail.
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5. Bring on the white noise. If you thought your office mates were annoying, just wait until you hear what your neighbors are up to during the day. So far today we’ve had one yapping dog, one toddler banging on pots and pans, and a gardener roaring through the neighbor’s yard with a leaf blower. Usually there’s some home construction or renovation going on as well. An oscillating fan masks most ruckus, and noise-canceling headphones are good for when things get really bad.
6. Shut down the browser. If I really need to concentrate, I close everything but the Word document in front of me. I wait until I’m done writing to use the Web to double-check facts and find links to embed in my columns.
I learned this little trick when we were staying with a relative who had misplaced the password to his wireless network. For three days, I had to write without an Internet connection most of the day. Only when I drove several miles to the nearest coffee shop was I able to connect. In those three days, I got more done than I normally accomplished in five.
Many studies have shown that it takes us a shockingly long time to refocus after interruptions. One survey that featured Microsoft workers showed it took them 15 minutes, on average, to recoup. So if I’m constantly interrupting myself by checking e-mail, Facebook and other sites, I could be adding hours of unproductive time to my day.
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