There are a few caveats, however. I always think of three in particular. To tell you the truth, all three can be summed up in one word: people. In no particular order:
Structure
Without the presence of other people, and without a standard office environment, it’s much more difficult to impose discipline on yourself in terms of how you structure your day. Of course, to many this is not a problem. It’s part of their character. They’re naturally organized people.
It’s not the case for everyone, however. If you’re like me, you’re all over the place. You may create structure, follow a discipline and keep to it for quite a while, but eventually it goes out the window … for any of a number of reasons, the main one being it’s not a part of who you are. You need the presence of others, the interaction with others to follow a structure.
No people
And that suggests the second caveat – beware of the absence of other people. We’re social animals (no matter how anti-social you may imagine yourself to be). Without fairly frequent interaction with other people, you just plain get weird. Think Howard Hughes.
People again
Having said the above, the last caveat is people: too much of them, in a sense. Working from home, many people think of you as being always “free.” At first, you may even indulge this because it’s kind of nice being able to take some time out in the day to hang with others. But it quickly sours as you realize you’re not getting work done, or doing it late at night to catch up on the time you lost during the day.
People know you work from home, and they don’t naturally interrupt up you during the day when you’re working, but … It just doesn’t look or feel like a work environment so it somehow doesn’t quite connect. It feels casual and leisurely. It doesn’t feel like work.
It may be that dealing with the first caveat might help with the third on my list. If you can impose a disciple (up at a certain time, at the job at a certain time, dressed a certain way) you may deal with third. The idea of working at home might communicate better to others if you dress with a degree of work formality so when you answer the door, for example, you’re wearing a tie as opposed to pajamas.
As for the second one, that one in the middle about no people, what I do is simply go downtown a few times a week with my computer and work for a few hours in restaurant. After a while, you meet people and have casual conversations. More importantly, it puts you in an environment where there are other people. You don’t feel quite so reclusive.
Not everyone can do this, of course, but if you can it’s worth considering.
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