What are the advantages of working from home?

Many a day I enjoy working from home with the freedom of being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it and the benefits that come with it. So what are these benefits:

1. Reduced travel time: This is a pretty dramatic improvement from what I used to do. Reducing my travel time from 45 mins to 1 minute has not only saved me 90 minutes of my day but also saved me over £10 in petrol costs each day.
2. Flexibility: The ability and freedom to be able to do things that you need to get done during open hours that you can’t get to do during your permanent employment. The ability to take a long lunch, book a doctors appointment are great examples.
3. Clothes: Being a designer and developer it is great benefit to be able to wear comfortable clothing that can actually increase my productivity. If restricted by formal clothing like I used to have to wear I actually found myself restricted. Not only increased productivity but also helps on your budget not having to spend extra cash on suits and shirts.
4. Household expenses: Expenses like electricity, and gas can be shared across the house hold and the business. These can be deducted accordingly from your tax bill at the end of the year.
5. Being your own boss: This is a big advantage from working from home, you can depict your working regime, time management and to setup meetings that are constructive rather than endless hours of unneeded meetings that occur every day throughout every business.

What are the disadvantages of working from home?

However there are some times that I wish I was working in an environment that brought a little more life to my working day.

1. Procrastination: It’s a lot easier to find yourself procrastinating in between jobs. There is no manager bearing down on you forcing you to work, or no deadline that needs to be met. However in the world of freelancing there is always something that needs to be done whether its admin, marketing or networking, but it can be all too easy to put off this stuff till tomorrow.
2. House work: If you find yourself working out of your living room with no set office space then it can be hard to get away from the distractions of household chores. The dishes need to be done, clothes wash or even shopping for food. All are pressures in the back of your mind that distract from your current focus.
3. Lack of human interaction: Being able to bounce ideas off colleagues, asking advice and learning from others is something that is missing from working from home. Often I find myself working long hours without any face to face interaction which decrease productivity and end up with sub par work.
4. Lack of stimulation: If your staring at the same four walls day in day out there is no doubt going to be lack of stimulation and new ideas, as your not experiencing life and the outside world.

How to make the most of it?

How can you overcome the disadvantages that can occur when working from home? Simple, to reduce procrastination try and set yourself deadlines, targets and goals with rewards for finishing them. Try and dedicate a space in your home just for work. If you have a spare room make it in to an office, if your working in your living room try and corner off an area especially for this where all the household chores are out of site.

Networking, socializing and collaborative on projects are great ways to engage with others an overcome the lack of interaction and sprout up new ideas and approaches to your work. Taking regular breaks and getting out of the house at lunch can help separate the work/home life with some well needed fresh air and time away from the screen.

How do you find working from home? Share your pros and cons below to help others in the same situation.

1. Tasks take longer than you think

Tasks that you are not 100% sure how to do take longer than you think. Make sure you give yourself a little extra time if you’ve agreed to do something which requires teaching yourself a new skill.

2. Finding the balance

Finding the balance of your prices and how much to charge for pieces of work can be tough. You might have to vary your prices for different types of companies or individuals at first while you are getting yourself established.

3. Focus on what you enjoy

Don’t think that you need to be a jack of all trades in order to get any work. Try and focus on what you love to do and what you are great at. Don’t offer all services under the sun otherwise you will never find the time to keep up with all the new changes and you will be selling yourself short.

4. Market yourself

You need to get out there and market yourself. You, your family and friends are a great way to market yourself in the beginning. Get them to spread the word and promote you. You are your ultimate fan. Getting out and meeting new people is the best way to promote your work, get yourself known and hopefully get a few new clients along the way

5. Try new things

In the slow times make sure that you are not only marketing yourself, but keep your site up to date with your latest work or even try to get some semi passive income streams up and running.

6. Play the waiting game

There is a lot of waiting. From the initial conversation with a client, to actually get a contract signed and the start of the project, can all take weeks. Try and make sure that you make it as easy as possible for them to get on board and talk to the the person who will sign off the project. If you have to wait for multiple people to sign things off this can increase the waiting time, and before you know it you’ll be pushing back other projects to fit in new projects. And that can lead to unhappy clients if you don’t meet original deadline or a lot of late nights.

7. You are you own enemy

You are your own worst enemy. If you have not been able to find a job for a few weeks you might start thinking ‘what’s the point’, ‘maybe I should go get a regular job’. Do you really want to go back to a stale unproductive environment? I didn’t think so. Get out there, vary up your routine a little, get in touch with contact and past clients and see if they have any work. There may be a project that they have been putting off and you may be able to help out. Leverage who you know and what you know to get your next piece of work.

Conclusion

Hopefully this has given you an insight in to what it takes to become a freelancer and the journey that you are already on or are about to undertake. It’s tough but you will become a better person for doing it. Just take some time before you start and plan, find some clients and get started on the journey to being self employed.

If you are currently freelancing, thinking about it or interested in this post then please share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below.

Good luck.

Where do you start?

I knew it was going to be the toughest challenge that I’d ever undertaken. And so I had to make sure that everyone around me, especially my family and friends, were in support of what I was doing. Having a support group to fall back on when things don’t quite go to plan is a must. You don’t want to feel like you are alone when the pressure gets too much. You will crack and end up running back to the 9-5.

Another thing you have to make sure of is to saved enough capital to help me when times are slow so you could still pay the bills. I was lucky enough  to have had lined up a large job re-creating one of the sites for an internet gaming publishing company. This gave me the incentive and final push to say those words that everyone at some point has always wanted to say to their boss, ‘I quit’.

Ok, so it didn’t quite go like that, but I did utter those words within another sentence. And it was as satisfying as it was scary.

What’s next?

Once you have the support, cash in the bank and hopefully a job lined up then it’s time to start making sure you have everything else in place. Working for yourself might sound like the greatest thing to do in the world, however there is a hell of a lot more work to it than just doing the work.

You have to become all those key people that your last company had. The salesman, marketer, administrator, accountant, lawyer, and then eventually you might get round to be the designer and developer you want to be. Of course if you are fortunate enough then you can probably outsource a lot of these jobs to others and it is highly recommended that you do when it comes to creating contracts and your accounts. But if you can’t then you will have a lot of learning and long nights ahead.

The fun bit

Even though it has been extremely hard work, it has also been great fun along the way. I like to learn about new ways of doing things and in freelancing you definitely have to keep innovating and on top of the latest technologies. I initially didn’t have a clue about how to market myself, how to do my accounts or even how to write a safe and secure contract. Through researching, learning,taking advice from others experiences’ my knowledge on these areas has increases ten fold.

In my day job it was the same thing day in day out. Now I get to vary what I do each day, which gives me freedom to enjoy my work more and feel more productive. I get to interact with a variety of different clients, from individuals who have very basic knowledge to larger companies that have greater knowledge but more restrictions and hoops to jumps. This variety is great as before I would just get assigned a job to do, now I get to interact with the clients, know exactly what they want and provide them with a great finished product. It gives me the ability to ask the questions that need to be asked and guide them in the development process. This may not always be what they originally thought of, but alwats turns out to be better for their users, and in turn, their company.

How will I know if freelancing is for me?

Freelancing isn’t for everyone. You have to be able to get up and set your own deadlines everyday. To push yourself to find new projects and new clients. To learn new concepts everyday. You should know if you have the will and get up and go to just say ‘I quit’.

A good indication of your personality however is 1. you are reading this blog so clearly you’ve been thinking about it. That is half way to actually doing it. and 2. do you find yourself at work questioning how things are done? Maybe finding new ways to improve the environment or teaching yourself how to get the work done when no one else around you seems to know how?

If so, read my followup post on ‘7 things I have learnt while freelancing‘ – where I give key lessons I’ve learnt from making the jump.