Working from home

When you set out, cutting costs is crucial to your long-term success so working from home is an ideal solution, but is it really a good idea? What will happen when a client wants to meet? Will I ever be able to leave work?

Your working environment

Firstly, make sure your office space is as dedicated an office space as possible, I know it’s difficult to spare the space when you live in a 1bed apartment but at least have a desk that allows you to fold away your papers safely. This is doubly as important if you’ve got kids or a loved one as that will take away the opportunity for them to “accidentally” spill a mug of coffee over your latest proposal.

If at all possible, dedicate an entire room –or even a floor if you can spare it to the business, there are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that you’ll be able to rent it to the business and then offset that expense on your tax return, another and I feel more important reason is that you’re able to get into another frame of mind when entering that space. I have an office at the rear of our property which is completely separated from the house with the exception of a small tea hatch. I’ve always felt that this has allowed me to semi-detach* work from home even though they’re within the same boundaries. Where at all possible I avoid mixing the two to re-enforce the segmentation.

*You’ll never really be able to detach from your business –it’s part and parcel of running your own business I’m afraid.

Depending on your personal mentality, having some form of dress code can also help you segment home from work, if you’ve already got a suit from a previous role, why not wear that while at work, then when you get home in the evening change into your home clothes. This may seem wacky but you’re not doing it for others, more so you can mentally detach from work. At the end of the day, you’re working from home so you can wear what you like and the likelihood is no-one will know*.

*I was told an “interesting” fact the other day, apparently it’s been estimated that somewhere in the region of 30% of home-workers work naked. It’s a disturbing thought –especially when you’re on the phone to someone you know works alone. Luckily I can reassure you that I’m not in that 30%. Yet.

Have a routine

Have a routine –this is very important, in the same way you would if you were working for someone else, make sure you’re in work for a given time and stick to it. Luckily, my better half Stacey has a full-time job which means she is up at 0630 every day for work as it is, I’ve forced myself to get up with her and get into the office ASAP which has worked well. It doesn’t matter whether your routine is 0900-1700 or 1700-0900, as long as you stick to it you’ll avoid countless duvet days –remember, when you’re not working, the likelihood is you’re not earning*!

*Again, this depends on your business model!

It is also worth setting yourself a finish time as part of your routine, you’re likely to work over a lot of the time but actually having a time to stop and get your coat gives you a deadline to work towards. There is a great article from Ryan Carson on A List Apart about working 4 days a week [The Four-Day Week Challenge], I think it’s a great idea and one that really is achievable but I agree with him, it's worth accepting that there'll never be enough time to finish everything.

Being the only person in the office I didn’t overly want to leave the office to itself and not having anyone to spend that extra day with (Stacey’s at work), I’ve chosen to make this change in stages. At the moment I’m following Google’s example of 20% time. 20% time is something that Larry and Page adopted from academia but in short, everyone is allowed to dedicate 20% of their working week to something that isn’t part of their day-job. This may be something they’re interested in developing for personal reasons or just an idea that you could profit from.

I’ve found this to be very beneficial to my working week especially when I’m in the middle of a large project, it gives you a little breathing space which in the past has allowed me to work out issues that had me banging my head against the wall. It also makes the weekend feel longer so you can relax more and prepare for the week ahead.

I like this 20% time concept (or as I call it “Fun Fridays”) not only because I'm able to step back from any on-going projects and relax a little more during the weekend (even when working on the weekends) but also because of where it takes me. For instance, a couple of Fridays ago I came up with the idea of writing a “Suggestion Box” -a simple Web User Control that can be added to any future project, it allows the user of the site (usually an admin user I would think) to suggest additions/alterations to the application. The suggestions are then stored in a central database for me to review later. The users can also rate other suggestions (using a little AJAX rating system ;)) so the managers are able to see the most popular ideas and gauge which are worth adding to the system. The plan is to review the (user) based suggestions with the management on a regular basis (even if it's just over email) and generate more work that we wouldn't have otherwise had. Although I identified the idea during the normal working week, had I not had “Fun Fridays” it would still just be an idea.

Having a routine for starting and finishing your day will allow your mind to be in the right frameset and again add another level of segmentation of home and work life. Being able to turn off at a given time and feel that you’re able to relax in the evening is very important.

Won't my clients mind?

In a word: No. I wouldn’t worry too much on having clients come to your house for meetings as depending on your business, I expect you’ll find that the majority of your client face to face meetings will be on site but for those that aren’t, why not check out the local hotels, pubs and coffee houses for a suitable meeting place. Find a couple of options and check them out at various times of the day and week so you know what to expect. Are they quiet? Are the tables big enough? Does it portray the right image for my company?

Many local hotels now offer conference and meeting rooms that include facilities like internet access, tea/coffee and other amenities but they’re at a cost. Alternatively your local Chamber of Commerce is likely to offer the same forms of facility if needed.

Asides from the work/home segmentation, one downside to working from home is that you will get rather cut off from the outside world. This is fine if you have the need for many client meetings or on-site consultancies but can be tough if not. You can easily remedy this by finding your local coffee shop, gym or pub and take a little time each day/week to get out of the office.

There is a new form of business establishing itself at the moment which offers dedicated office space on a monthly retainer so if you choose to work from home for the majority of the month but would still like to retain a little face-to-face contact with the outside world you could check out the serviced offices. Another advantage of having these offices will also mean you meet other businesses.

Telephony

I’ve been working out of an office at the back of the house for 3 years now and it’s the same telephone line, friends and family know this so when they call and I don’t answer, the “Welcome to The Site Doctor” answer machine message doesn’t worry them. I’ve not had any issues with this, the only thing I would recommend is you have Caller Id added and if you can’t remember telephone numbers get a phone/display that has a memory for you, that way you can easily ignore business calls out of hours if you so wish.

Remember that when starting out, it’s important to keep costs as low as possible and although having dedicated office lines is nice, it can also be expensive. Skype is a cheap VOIP solution however I’ve had issues with it’s reliability for Skype-Skype calls in the past so can’t personally recommend it.

Author

Tim

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