Last week, I talked about how I’m super excited to start working from home, and all of the positives that go along with it (such as no pants and making your own schedule, haha). However, there are some disadvantages and I would like to talk about them.
To me, the positives of working from home greatly outweigh the negatives. The negatives don’t bother me all too much, and it’s much better than dragging my butt to work everyday at a place that I am not in love with. However, I have met a couple of people who say that they hate working from home and prefer to work in an office environment.
You’re always working
Working from home and freelancing means that you’ll most likely devote more time and always feel like you are working because of the environment that you are in.
Also, running your own business almost always equals more work, because you don’t want to see your business fail. So many freelancing professionals work over 80 hours per week, it’s almost like it’s normal!
I know that eventually my freelancing will probably take over my life, but I am fine with that! I just want a healthy balance, and I want to be able to devote more time to my freelancing. I also want to enjoy what I am doing.
Feeling lonely
If you are used to working in a very social environment, then working from home will be a complete shock to you most likely. You might miss the daily interactions with your coworkers and lunches out. I eat by myself everyday and have almost no interaction at my job (it’s a very, very small office that I’m in), so this won’t be a big change at all.
Most of my friends and W have a different work schedule than I currently do, so I will have more time to see everyone when I start working from home.
You might get easily distracted
Working from home can be great but you need to be really focused. It is all too easy to start procrastinating and turning on the TV instead of working. Life without a schedule can prove to be difficult as well, and a person needs to be very self-motivated.
Having children and working at home can always be a big distraction as well. I know of many people who send their children to daycare or a babysitter a couple of days a week so that they can get undistracted work done.
Losing benefits/stability
A negative of freelancing 100% (so, this is not entirely related to working from home because some people work from home but still work for a company), means that I will lose my stable income from my job. I will also lose my free benefits such as their contribution to my SEP and health insurance. Success means I have to take risks, right?
Would you work from home?
I think most of the items you listed above are the same for moving to any job.It just takes time to get adjusted to your new environment. I would be the most the concerned about losing benefits. It’s good you are getting married so that you will be able to enroll on your fiance’s benefits and atleast get some solid health insurance.
Thank you Liz!
So true! A great benefit is being at home on your own schedule. Sounds great to me! Maybe setting a schedule will prevent the problem of “always working”
Creating my own schedule is definitely a huge plus 🙂
I bet! I’m guessing that its one of the perks! What motivated you to want to work at home?
My freelancing of course! 🙂
I totally agree with you on these negatives, but I also think the positives outweigh the negatives. If I were to move to working from home full time I’d have to make sure my workspace was the way I like it with a lot of natural light. Right now, our “office” is just kind of thrown together, so we’d have to organize that. I’d love to work from home, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it anytime soon.
I definitely need to fix up my office. I haven’t really even thought about that!
I feel the distractions would be the biggest problem for me. I would get addicted to daytime TV if I wasn’t careful. I’m a sucker for Dr. Oz!
I also know that I’d lose a lot of things to complain about if I didn’t have an office job, lol. And sometimes, you need something minor to complain about in life.
Haha yeah I don’t know how I’m going to stop myself from watching TV. That may become a problem!
Although I’m not “working” from home right now, I have been home for 2 months, and I agree 100% with everything on this list. Thankfully I don’t have cable so TV isn’t a huge distraction. If I am watching a show, I only download one or two episodes at a time, so I can’t marathon shows when I have work to do. 🙂
Yeah I’m not sure what I’m going to do about TV distractions. I can get hooked so easily.
I have worked from home in the past and I found it quite enjoyable. I felt more productive and happier. I got to do it in my PJs too. 🙂
PJs are definitely a plus 🙂
I honestly feel that there are few negative aspects of working from home. I do get easily distracted so I counter that by turning my phone off while I’m working. I also set strict “work hours,” typically 7am-3pm and I try to stay serious about working during that time.
That’s good! I definitely need to make sure that I have strict work hours as well.
I’m thinking about freelancing in the future and the one thing I can’t get over is health insurance. It’s so expensive! And I’m not married yet so I don’t have the option of jumping on the significant other’s plan. How do you plan on getting health insurance?
Yes, health insurance is definitely expensive! And I just plan on jumping on his plan. If that doesn’t work then I will have to buy it.
Not to butt in, but I tried going on my husbands and it was SO expensive. I ended up getting my own plan after looking at plans through ehealthinsurance.com (I think that’s the site). It’s still expensive, but it’s a little cheaper than what we were offered by my husbands company + better coverage.
Then again he works at a very small business so I’m not sure what they cover, etc. Just an option 😉
Luckily W’s insurance is completely free and has pretty good coverage.
For me, the biggest trouble with working from home is my son. We don’t have a great way for me to stay separated from him and my wife, so he constantly wants to play. He isn’t old enough to “get” that I’m working and not just ignoring him. I’ve gotten to holing up in our room and just working on my bed, which isn’t perfect but mostly solves the problem.
I think it would be much more hard with a child involved. I would get too distracted!
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I am a permanent home teleworker at my job and despite some inherent disadvantages, I definitely would not go back to an office setting if I had the choice (which I currently do).
Regarding the distractions – I don’t find that things like the tv are all that tempting when there’s so much work to be done. Rather, the real distractions come from trying to get household chores done! Washing the dishes, laundry, etc. can easily pull you away especially when you justify it in your mind as “getting other work done.” Sure, it’s good to get that stuff over and done with, but if it pulls you away from the real job work then it can end up causing undue stress about meeting deadlines and such.
Very true. I would definitely get distracted with house work!
I believe that working at home is way better than other places but all the negatives you mentioned are true. One has to have good self discipline because of the distractions available at home.
Thanks!
I do work from home. I have for a couple of years now. In the past “working from home” meant me TRYING to make an income from home and doing ok at it. Trying this and that until I found something that works. The last year have been freelance design + an online store and I can confidently say I’m WORKING from home. I’m hoping I can add a few blogs that generate some income to that list and I just picked up a staff writing job for a new blog.
I love working from home. I’m available (almost) anytime if an opportunity to go somewhere or do something comes up. It’s easier to plan trips since we only have to work around my husbands time off.
But as you mentioned, there are negatives. Loneliness is a big one for me. But I think mine is a combination of working from home and having just moved away from friends/family 2 years ago. If I had friends in the area, I doubt loneliness would be an issue.
Working ALL THE TIME is also an issue. I try to make a point to at least get off the computer every night around the time my husband comes home, even if I check my mail occasionally on my phone.
Sheesh, sorry for the novel. Now I’m going to read all the comments because I love hearing other peoples opinions/experiences!
This all sounds awesome. I’m definitely going to be reading through your site like crazy and will subscribe right now!
I have the ability to work from home and enjoy it, but I don’t like doing it all of the time. I worked from home for 4 weeks one time and I just wanted to get back in the office. It was too much for me. I enjoy my coworkers and my office environment. This is the reason why I moonlight freelance, so I can keep my great benefits and my full time job. I do think that you have to make sacrifices for self-employment, but I have done it before and there are definitely pros and cons.
Good to hear Grayson! Right now I work with almost no one, and talk to no one all day long.
Honestly I am an office manager that usually has two or sometimes 3 people in it max during any normal work week. Most of the contractors I work with are on the road so my interaction with people already is very little and I’m totally fine with that.
The guy I work for is a great guy and I don’t have that gut wrenching feeling every day I have to go to work. But I know and he knows deep down that my drive is to eventually branch out on my own and build my own business or at least take charge of the current one. I don’t know what it is but I have never had the motivation to want to work for anyone but myself and that started early on in my teen years.
Would I work from home? Absolutely. I like the quiet and comfort of my own home and I have never needed someone to micromanage my work to get it completed in time.
As for the hours I pretty much do that already with a full time job of 40 hours a week plus working several hours thereafter on side hustles to earn extra money to squash all my remaining debts so overall it wouldn’t be much of change for me except saving in gas and lunch money.
I can’t wait to wait from home. Like you said, I like the quit and comfort here.
9 to 5 office life is not for me, even though I’ve been doing it for the past two years but lucky for me, I work for a laid back company which allows me to come and go as I please. I got a sweet deal but I still want to freelance full time. Most likely once I start freelancing full time, I’ll work from libraries and coffee shops.
I definitely plan on branching out and switching up where I work when I switch to being self employed. Might be at home, the library, coffee shops, the park and so on.
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I don’t trust myself to work from home. I just get too easily distracted.
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