Working From Home - Why You Should Consider It!

Working From Home - For some people, working Monday to Friday, 7 days a week is not something they would consider. They would rather not work at all than to be stuck in an office for a whole day, come home tired and not able to read bed time stories to the kids. But for some, they love the routine of daily commute; just soaking up the office environment, networking, generating wealth and pumping up ones ego.

That is all great if you are still single and have no young family to bring up. But once there's a family, the whole plan changes. So, how do you ensure that you keep the job you love and still manage to spend quality time with the family? Well, you could decide to pack it all in and look for something closer to home, ask that your hours be reduced...or you could ask to be moved to a branch office where the work load is less.

How about working from home. Since the explosion of the internet and free VOIP and cheap broadband network, most people have been taking the opportunity to change their working life. Traditionally, most people had to commute to work every single day, but that is now changing. In fact, a recent poll showed that more than 10% of the computing and financial professionals regularly work from home.This of course is still very low when there should be more people doing it.

Why you should consider working from home -
There are many reasons why one should consider working from home; not only does it save you money and stress in the long term, it also allows you to work in an environment that you are most happy - your home. The stresses of commuting and daily round trip is reduced. The time you would normally spend on the road could be spent on something else. As most developers know, a great deal of code can be written within just 2 hours. This is the average time that a typical commuter spends on the road on a daily basis.

Apart from that, it is believed that most people's home computers are in most cases more powerful than their office equipments. You get to use your own computer configuration that you know and trust. Another plus with working from home is that it allows you to focus on working on the problem domain with little or no distractions like noise and chatter from across the cubicle.

The most important reason of all is to be able to spend that vital quality time with your kid(s). For me, my kids are my priority - and to be able to spend time with them means I don't have to live my life in my 17 inch laptop backpack.

Who works from home?
 But you don't need to have a young family for you to work from home. All sorts of people choose to work from home for different reasons - again, these could be because they are disabled and need the flexibility to work in an environment where there's little or no obstacle to their mobility. Others do it because, as mentioned before, they are more productive in their own home office.

So, what are the downsides?
Well, despite the long list of benefits of working from home, there are a few gotchas -
For a start, it is easy to work beyond your normal 9 -5 hours because you are in a home environment. And remember, any extra time you put into your work may not count and won't get paid for it. You may even end up not spending the time working on your office project as there's no one to monitor your progress.

A few people have found themselves working at night because they spent the day on things entirely outside their office project. Because you used your own electricity, broadband, telephone and VOIP, who pays the bills? These are some of the things one needs to consider before working from home.

The Take away -
While working with colleagues together under the same roof in an office is important, you should also consider working from home. Speak to your manager and if possible help put a system in place to encourage flexible working environment. As lots of researches have shown, to be really productive developers need to be in an environments that is not only flexible, but a place where they are free to roam, be creative and feel very much at home.