WARNING: This is a no-edit zone…

What’s the upside? Are there perks? What’s best about working at home?

What’s the downside? Are there drawbacks? What’s worst about working at home?

When we’re stuck in a 9 to 5 job, married to a desk, or we’re torn between being at home with the kids when the family really could use a second income, our thoughts often turn to working at home. We dream of working at home. How wonderful, we think, it would be to not have to get up and go to work.

Sometimes in these dreams we go so far as to do a pro and con list. These are the benefits and drawbacks of working outside the home, and these are the benefits and drawbacks of working at home.

In the past two decades, I’ve done plenty of both, and there are benefits and drawbacks on either path–some of which you might have considered, and some that perhaps have yet to come to mind and make it onto your list. As in most situations, when you look beyond the work itself and to the realities of living with doing the work on a daily basis, things you didn’t think of and couldn’t know come up. It’s those things I’d like to discuss in this series on Working-at-Home.

The ugly is obvious to us all, but let’s do a little comparison of the good and the bad.

THE GOOD

You set your own hours.
You determine your own workload.
You set your own agenda.
You elect which jobs to take on, and which ones to refuse.
You can be at home with your kids, or with the parent residing with you, or with the spouse who works from or is confined to home.
If you need time off, you can schedule it.
You’re the boss, and the perks are many.
You choose, you decide and you assign/attribute focus–all are your choices.

THE BAD

You set your own hours.
You determine your own workload.
You set your own agenda.
You elect which jobs to take on, and which ones to refuse.
You can be at home with your kids, or with the parent residing with you, or with the spouse who works from or is confined to home.
If you need time off, you can schedule it.
You’re the boss, and the perks are many.
You choose, you decide and you assign/attribute focus–all are your choices.

Note that the entries in the “good” and “bad” column are exactly the same.

The reason for that is each of these points can be positive or negative–a benefit and blessing–or a bane and curse. Which column–good or bad–each item ends up in depends on one thing: READ MORE…