Working From Home – Why it’s Hated Why it’s Loved andWhy You Should

I’ve long been a big fan of working from home. I just simply find working at my computer inmy own surroundings much more enjoyable than the cubicle. It also fits with my

.When I work from home I find a few things happen:

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I gain an extra 3 hours of time. As my commute to work is over an hour, there is anextra 3 hours right back in my pocket. Nice

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I feel I’ve effectively escaped the cubicle. If only for a day

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When I finish work, I’m already home

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I actually get more work done. Yes, because it’s concentrated and not interrupted. Bystaying focused I fly through my work often compressing a full day into only 5 or sohoursThis last point brings up an interesting little dilemma. Are there occasions in the cubiclewhen we spread our work out to last 8 or even 10 hours to give the impression of looking busy? I have found in the cubicle environment one (or both) of the following scenarios take place. Some of us try to

appear busy therefore create extra work for ourselves

and some of us

get distracted by people who stuff around

so much it causes us to do extra work to play catch-up.This creates a nasty negative productivity loop, if you get distracted for more than 5 mins productivity experts say

you effectively lose 15 mins

just trying to get back to whatever itwas you were doing. So it goes something like this; start a task, get distracted, lose 15mins,continue on for an hour, get distracted, lose 15mins and so on. As you can see, if you actuallydo start a task it takes 50% longer to complete. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t a million distractions anyway, but if you schedule emailcollection to only 3 times a day and put your iPod headphones in to shut out the distractionsfrom walk-ups, most likely only the serious 5 mins time suckers are going to get through your defences.So, does that mean the same happens when you work from home? Sure it does, I bet some of you are probably thinking there are even more distractions like kids, TV, Internet etc etc.However I believe there are some key differences.

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We don’t have to put up with distracting colleagues

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We don’t have to sit around participating in boring irrelevant meetingsAnd the big one, we are more motivated to rip through the work because when we finish weare already at home. We are then free to choose to do what we want for the rest of the day.We can either start the next day’s work or go on and do something else non work related.This brings me to the very fact why I believe managers are not a fan of work from home. Idon’t think they like the whole finish early but no one knows you have secrecy of it all.So, if working from home is loved by employees and hated by employers what can be doneabout it? Here are some things I do to ensure we all get along:

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I’ve always made an extra effort when I work from home often asking for more work if I get through my tasks early. This way I am letting everyone know I’m open for business