do you work from home - would you recommend it

[givemeaclue]

a job has come up that would involve working from home, the job itself is great but I like the contact with colleagues in the office at work - and otherwise would be at home every day of the week (I work 3 days, 2 days sahm)

just wonder how motivating I would find it, would I be lonely/bored etc

any tips from those who are home based?

[CMOTdibbler]

I like it, but I do travel for work so its not many weeks I'm just at home all the time.

[eve34]

Depends on the job, I work from home, have stuff to get done so get on.
It can get boring though. Bigger part of my job is visiting families I support so am out and about most of the time.

If the role was solely working from home I don' think I would of stuck it.

The pluses are you can put the washing in/out when it rains. Also your have no commute to/from work. HTH

[nancy75]

I used to but I disliked it.
I found it too easy to get distracted by household chores, phoning my friends, watching tv and then had to rush to get work done. I also found it very lonely.

[Sarah159]

It depends on the individual, so I can only give my observations from my own pov after working at home for 5 years:

You need to be able to motivate yourself and not accidently find you've spent 3 hours on MN/ watching tv/making a snack/just hanging up that last bit of washing

You need to be the kind of person that doesn't mind not having contact with people face to face. Personally, I missed the team environment & the banter desperately but I did have people I worked with regularly on jobs around the country so that helped. It can be lonely and isolating but depending on your job/company you may be able to deal with this effectively

You need to be strict about working time and realistic about what you can achieve in a working day

Make sure other people are realistic about what you can do - you're working, it just happens to be in the home. I found sometimes it was assumed I would do additional house work stuff because I happened to be at home (which you can do sometimes) and I often had to remind DH that I was actually working

On the plus side you can go to work in your dressing gown and ski socks in the winter :)

[BsshBossh]

I love it, but that's because it suits my personality. So long as I have adult, social time (usually with DH, but hey-ho!) in the evenings then I'm fine. If DH is travelling on business then I have friends/family. Weekends are usually filled with friends/family so I never get lonely during the working week.

I hated office politics and love the fact that I am more productive at home and can hang out the washing and put on a slow cook meal for dinner later at odd moments .

[BsshBossh]

Oh yes, motivation is the key. I am quite self-motivated so working at home works well for me.

[MadAsASnakeNana]

Love it. Don't think I could actually go back to getting up at 6am and dashing out, all that travelling - and then the nightmare journey home. You can sit and work in your dressing gown, put the washing on/hang it out. It's great, no problem motivating myself - just know what I have to do each day. I'm a bad sleeper and can also work late at night if I want/need to.

[Beamur]

I work from home on an ad hoc basis and love it. Saves me 2 hours commuting and means I can take and collect DD from school.
I'd be happy to do more days but I do need to be in the office too.

[Empusa]

It really does depend.

Previous job I was employed by a company and worked from home, while most of them were in the office. My colleagues/boss had a tendency to assume that as I was at home I wouldn't mind continuing to work on my lunch break, or work later (seeing as I had no commute). Also, because they couldn't see me working they also tended to assume I had nothing to do and keep throwing extra work at me, despite me telling them that I was actually quite busy. Though not being a people person, I quite enjoyed being on my own.

Concentration is really hard though. You wouldn't think it'd be easier to concentrate in a busy office, but it really is. Plus your motivation does tend to go out the window.

I did discover that a really strict routine helped most, and little things like making sure there was a transition from not-at-work, to at-work.