Why you should consider working from home

The everlasting repetition that comes from working in an office every day can often dissuade people from working as hard as they can.

The early morning travel to avoid the traffic, the nauseating chit-chat with co-workers, the incessant meetings and the dreaded training days can often feel exhausting and draining.

However, in today’s instantaneous and connected world, many are now leaving the gloomy depths of office blocks and breathing new life into their jobs by working from home.

If this option arrives in your job and you don’t know whether to accept, it is always best to consider the positives and negatives of working from home. In this article, we discuss the reasons why you should consider making the huge step and setting yourself up in the comfort of your own home. Today, there are many websites and useful links to help anybody set up and manage their own business, providing continuous advice and support regardless of whether you’re based in an office or on your sofa. The gov.uk website provides easy to use guides to ensure you’re complying to legal requirements, whilst websites such as informi.co.uk, provide fuss and jargon free advice on all stages of managing any business.

However, before you start, you need to consider what you will need to ensure that you can efficiently work in your house. Equipment is especially key to this. Do you need a computer or laptop? Is your broadband deal fast and large enough to deal with the amount of daily work that you will need to undertake? Do you even have a landline that you can be contacted on? Will you need a printer, fax machine or other office equipment to undertake your role? All of these questions will need answering before you can even consider starting to work from home.

Once you have your office space set-up, ready and equipped with everything you need, you can enjoy all of the fantastic benefits of working from home.

Firstly, you can delight in the fact that you will no longer be commuting to a remote location. This can be an especially tedious side of any job, especially when working in major cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. Waking up two or three hours before your job even starts and forcing yourself onto some immeasurably busy public transport can be a real test of resolve. Fortunately, when working from home, you simply have to get yourself up, shower, have some breakfast and take a gentle stroll into your home-based office. It couldn’t be simpler. A study by PGI, found that 82% of telecommuters reported lower stress levels, which is a good thing not only for remote workers, but for the companies that employ them.

Another consideration to make when deciding to work from home or not is whether you can motivate yourself to work as efficiently by yourself as you did under the watchful eye of a colleague or other superior. Some people find it a struggle to remove themselves from the comforts of home when working remotely. While it can be hard to step away from the television or the household chores, you must be able to focus completely on your work. Fortunately, if you manage your workload correctly, household tasks and luxuries can be achieved and enjoyed during working hours. It is one of the luxuries of working from home. Find the perfect balance and you will find that free time outside of office hours actually increases.

Perhaps the most enjoyable benefit of working from home is that you are answering to yourself most of the time. While you may still be in constant contact with colleagues, working from home enables you to plan your own day in a far more relaxed environment. In fact, a recent study suggested that 86% of people who worked from home believed that their productivity and morale was far better when compared to working in an office.

Another often unconsidered perk of working from home is the fact that most people will save money. Not only will travel expenses become virtually non-existent, unnecessary spending on elaborate lunches from an expensive shop or those pricy after-work drinks with colleagues that are impossible to avoid all disappear. While this may only prevent a few pounds from leaving your bank account every day, these costs add up over time, so you should see a healthy saving after a few months of working from home.

While it is also essential that you separate your work life from your home life, it can also be handy to have access to programs and emails when out of working hours. Although it is not advisable to spend your evenings catching up on work whilst at home, any urgent situations can be dealt with in a super-efficient manner at any time of the day, rather than having to wait until the next morning when you return to an office.

So while it may not be a suitable situation for everyone, working from home has some enormous benefits that can honestly change your life for the better. If you feel that you can keep yourself motivated in the comforts of your own home then you should seriously consider making the move.

The everlasting repetition that comes from working in an office every day can often dissuade people from working as hard as they can.

The early morning travel to avoid the traffic, the nauseating chit-chat with co-workers, the incessant meetings and the dreaded training days can often feel exhausting and draining.

However, in today’s instantaneous and connected world, many are now leaving the gloomy depths of office blocks and breathing new life into their jobs by working from home.

If this option arrives in your job and you don’t know whether to accept, it is always best to consider the positives and negatives of working from home. In this article, we discuss the reasons why you should consider making the huge step and setting yourself up in the comfort of your own home. Today, there are many websites and useful links to help anybody set up and manage their own business, providing continuous advice and support regardless of whether you’re based in an office or on your sofa. The gov.uk website provides easy to use guides to ensure you’re complying to legal requirements, whilst websites such as informi.co.uk, provide fuss and jargon free advice on all stages of managing any business.

However, before you start, you need to consider what you will need to ensure that you can efficiently work in your house. Equipment is especially key to this. Do you need a computer or laptop? Is your broadband deal fast and large enough to deal with the amount of daily work that you will need to undertake? Do you even have a landline that you can be contacted on? Will you need a printer, fax machine or other office equipment to undertake your role? All of these questions will need answering before you can even consider starting to work from home.

Once you have your office space set-up, ready and equipped with everything you need, you can enjoy all of the fantastic benefits of working from home.

Firstly, you can delight in the fact that you will no longer be commuting to a remote location. This can be an especially tedious side of any job, especially when working in major cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. Waking up two or three hours before your job even starts and forcing yourself onto some immeasurably busy public transport can be a real test of resolve. Fortunately, when working from home, you simply have to get yourself up, shower, have some breakfast and take a gentle stroll into your home-based office. It couldn’t be simpler. A study by PGI, found that 82% of telecommuters reported lower stress levels, which is a good thing not only for remote workers, but for the companies that employ them.

Another consideration to make when deciding to work from home or not is whether you can motivate yourself to work as efficiently by yourself as you did under the watchful eye of a colleague or other superior. Some people find it a struggle to remove themselves from the comforts of home when working remotely. While it can be hard to step away from the television or the household chores, you must be able to focus completely on your work. Fortunately, if you manage your workload correctly, household tasks and luxuries can be achieved and enjoyed during working hours. It is one of the luxuries of working from home. Find the perfect balance and you will find that free time outside of office hours actually increases.

Perhaps the most enjoyable benefit of working from home is that you are answering to yourself most of the time. While you may still be in constant contact with colleagues, working from home enables you to plan your own day in a far more relaxed environment. In fact, a recent study suggested that 86% of people who worked from home believed that their productivity and morale was far better when compared to working in an office.

Another often unconsidered perk of working from home is the fact that most people will save money. Not only will travel expenses become virtually non-existent, unnecessary spending on elaborate lunches from an expensive shop or those pricy after-work drinks with colleagues that are impossible to avoid all disappear. While this may only prevent a few pounds from leaving your bank account every day, these costs add up over time, so you should see a healthy saving after a few months of working from home.

While it is also essential that you separate your work life from your home life, it can also be handy to have access to programs and emails when out of working hours. Although it is not advisable to spend your evenings catching up on work whilst at home, any urgent situations can be dealt with in a super-efficient manner at any time of the day, rather than having to wait until the next morning when you return to an office.

So while it may not be a suitable situation for everyone, working from home has some enormous benefits that can honestly change your life for the better. If you feel that you can keep yourself motivated in the comforts of your own home then you should seriously consider making the move.