What it really means to work from home

Increased family time
Working from home has allowed me to spend more time with my family I have two small children, a 6yr old and a 1 yr old, and a husband. Before working from home I would leave home around 6:30/7am each day to drop my son off at school/childcare, then head to work. Pick him up around 5 pm. Get home around 7 pm and he was in bed by 9 pm. Often there wouldn’t be time to cook dinner ( so it would be leftovers or eating out ) or really bond. Now I drop him at school at 7:30 am and the bus brings him home at 2:50 pm. The commute each way is about 15 minutes, I get have my 1 year old at home with me ( saving on having to pay for infant childcare, which is easily $250+ a week). We get to bond and play throughout the day. I make breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home ( another point of saving $). I get to bond with my family over meals. And when my husband comes from work we have time to relax.

You pick your own hours
I don’t work set hours of the day. I try my best to gauge when I will work but it shifts slightly each day. Some days I am up and working at 8 am — 1 pm then break until work again from 3 pm — 7 pm. Other days I start work at 3 pm and finish at 9 pm. But that is the beauty of this option as long as I get the work done by its due date/time it doesn’t matter when I work.

Cutting Costs
When I was working at the office I would have to pay commuting costs, buy clothing for work, meals at work, and other misc work related items. Being at home I often work in my pj’s. When I have digital meetings I just throw on a nice top, because who cares if I’m wearing pink unicorn pajama pants they can’t see it. I eat whats at home which is a fraction of what the price would be if I was purchasing meals outside. And commuting fees don’t exist. I would say on average I save between over $400 a month on costs by working from home.

Cons of working from home
As much as I love working from home nothing is perfect. Here are some cons that are associated with working from home.

Work Never Ends
Literally, I have the urge to work a lot more while at home. Because my office is just a few steps away and that project I was working on earlier I just need to tweak that one part so I can send it off early ( my fellow work from homers know exactly what I am talking about). When you work in the office it’s easier to leave what happens in the office at the office until tomorrow or the next time you come in. But what happens when you are ALWAYS in!? To combat this I create specific office spaces aka “ I only work at this chair around the table” or “I am only allowed to work at my desk, if I’m not at my desk then I am not allowed to work”. It was hard keeping these boundaries at first but once I saw the results of leaving my work at “work” I started doing it more often. And now in my new home, I actually have a dedicated office. So my motto is that my work stays in that room and is not allowed to travel all over the house with me. This way when work ends, it ENDS.

Lack of Coworkers
Actually, I do have some coworkers ( my kids and husband), they just aren’t my desired co-workers as I just can’t talk to them about last weeks episode of Insecure. I am a very social person and thrive off human connections and communications. So being in my office most times by myself it gets a bit lonely. To combat this I have joined many digital communities and networks that I get to connect with others who are entrepreneurs, work from home, work in an office etc. but just a community of humans I can connect with and digitally work with.

It’s about synergy
Overall I love the work-life synergy that I get from working from home. Especially in such a fragile time in my life and career. I do plan to go back and work full time in an office someday, but for now, I am just enjoying building things and being with my family.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can work from home feel free to shoot me a message https://www.georgieann.com/contact-me