Working From Home, Permanently, for the First Time: How to Make it Work?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi, I ask for help from my fellow Dopers who may know about this, who may have been there, done that. Can you help? After 40+ years of working from an office or a job site, I recently started my first consulting job where I work from my own home.

Advantages (so far):

  • There is a lot of freedom and flexibility - I choose my own hours, generally, and there’s no boss or co-worker swinging by to check if I am working or not.
  • My hourly rate is higher than before because there are no paid benefits (but I have med, dental & vision through my wife’s company).

This is my first consulting gig and I am slightly underpaid (for a consultant), but I am okay with that for now. If I like it, and when I prove my value, I can negotiate a higher hourly wage.

Disadvantages (so far):

  • Very little interpersonal interaction.
  • Very little variety. Same bedroom office,
  • All this freedom has led to some days having not as much structure as I think I like, or need.
  • Right now the job is not overly interesting and challenging, but that’s okay because I want to try this ‘consulting thing’ and see if I like it. Also, the job is only just ramping up, so it might get more challenging later. Or soon.

What suggestions do you have for me? Have you been in a similar situation and got any tips that worked for you? Thanks in advance!

2

I’m no expert, as I only occasionally work from home. I did find, though, that I was able to spend more time focused in my office once I made it as nice a space as I could. Previously, the room had been cluttered with random stuff and disorganized as a workspace, and I found that I couldn’t stay in the room for long stretches at a time. Eventually, I just started working on the living room couch.

Recently, we spent half a day reorganizing and cleaning out the office. Everything extraneous is gone. The desks are clean. I bought new monitors so that my desktop screen space at home matches what is available to me in my real work office (a laptop screen + two 23-inch monitors). Nice speakers connected to the computer, as I like to listen to music while I work. A comfy office chair and a nice window to look out of also help.

So when I worked remotely for an entire week a couple of weeks ago, I found I had no need or desire to frequently leave the office as I had in the past. I was comfortable and focused. The only downside is that it means I now want to work from more more often. :slight_smile:

Good luck!

3

I work from home two days a week. I wouldn’t want to do more than that, because you definitely don’t interact with people as much, even when you make the effort to. My suggestions, which are not particularly original, are:

  1. If possible, get a dedicated space. A room dedicated as an office is ideal, to both compartmentalize things better and give privacy. If not, try to make as much of a dedicated work space as possible. Make it comfortable and make it private. This will make work much easier than if you work at the kitchen table or something.

  2. I don’t know what your family situation is like, but if there are other people, make sure they understand that work from home is still work. What this means can vary depending on the person. I know some people who do not want any family members to disturb them for any reason short of the house burning down. I am not that way. I am fine with my wife poking her head in my office to see if I am free, to ask a question, or even to just chat for a bit. But when I started, she kind of felt that me working from home was similar to me being there on a day off, and she would expect me to watch young kids if she went out, go pick up kids from school, etc. That changed pretty quickly. I am still fine if she asks if I am free to pick someone up from a friend’s house at 3:00, but I am always willing to say “No” and then she doesn’t expect me to do it.

4

What Clark said. You need to keep distractions away. You should also have a dedicated phone for work, not a big deal now with computers and cell phones. If you need to print, don’t count on the family printer. These days I ask anyone around the house to call or text me if they need me when I’m working.

5

I telecommuted for years. DOwn side: I pretty much had to dedicate a room in my house to all my work stuff (and since it was mostly company owned I had to put a rider on my insurance). There was not a lot of interaction although my coworker and I talked a lot on the phone and got together at least once a week. Once school was out and my kid was home things got a little chaotic. “Mom can you drive me to ____.” “No, I’m at work.” (Although I did have some flexibility there.)

Upside, no commute, able to work through a blizzard that would have cost PTO otherwise, no dress code.

Oh…I did have one client who came to the office, i.e., my house. She brought her two little kids and spread them out in my living room. I don’t think she would have done that if I’d still been in the proper office. On the other hand, she was an exceptional case, so she might have. I actually felt like there were some boundary issues there.

6

When I worked from home full time, I set aside a dedicated space for work, set up a structured to-do list, made sure to get up and get dressed as if I were going into the office. I also mastered the various video-communication technologies that were available, as it helps mitigate the isolation. After 6 months of working from home, I had developed most of the symptoms of alcoholism and was drunk by around noon every day.

Everyone has distinct habits and preferences, so as you craft your routine and environment, it’s important to be aware of these and factor them into your workflow.

7

I’ll add a third for what Clark said.

My own…

Be careful of bleed over. Try to keep yourwork time vs. personal time well defined. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you’re contantly shifting between the two.

8

I’ve recently become a full-time telecommuter for the first time in my life.

Since I’m a pretty private/introverted person, this removed my largest (by far) source of interacting with actual humans. Still working on adjusting to that.

I started with getting up later because I no longer have the 45-60 minute commute. Then after a couple of weeks, I started making an effort to get up closer to the earlier time and GET OUT OF MY APARTMENT. Walked 1.5 miles round trip to the convenience store to buy a powerball ticket, just as an excuse to get out. Have driven to a McDonalds about 5 miles away (several closer) just to do a bit of driving and get some air.

Went grocery shopping or to Walmart over my lunch time 4 days this week, to get out and about.

But yeah, distraction management becomes an issue. My cats want food, they want attention. I can do my laundry while working, but I can’t get distracted with working at it or folding clothes. I can’t do any real cleaning beyond scooping a cat box or sweeping the hall, because it takes me away from working for too long. I can’t go down to the rental office and yap about an issue just because I’m home, because that is work time. That sort of thing.

9

I was in a similar situation for several years. I got in the habit of having a Monday morning teleconference with my client every week, mapping out my tasks and their expectations for the week. And I sent a weekly report of which tasks were completed and which were not. That kept me focused and helped me avoid slipping into large non-productive chunks of time.

I also gave myself little rewards during a workday. Such as, I’d break the days tasks into four groups, and allow myself a half hour on SDMB (or whatever) as I finished each one.

10

Agree with everyone else recommending a separate space. In my case, my office is part of a detached garage, so I actually have a 10-yard commute to work. It makes it so much easier to set my mental state of “now I’m at work, now I’m home.”

As nice as the flexible hours are, you might consider a regular schedule if motivation is a problem. I get out to my office at the same time every day whether I have a call scheduled or not.

Finally, I’m a big proponent of instant message chat clients if there are people you need to regularly communicate with. Picking up the phone for every little question isn’t going to happen, and emails seem to demand a longer response than is really necessary. IMs work for me because it feels a little more like a conversation so I don’t feel as isolated, and I can ignore it if I’m in the middle of something.

11

I’ll second this. I make a habit of LEAVING the home office at a set time each day.
I log off my remote connection, get up and physically leave the office, and maybe leave the house altogether. This does wonders to clearly separate work hours from the rest of the day.

12

I’m running two businesses out of the house - and they are both consulting businesses. In one case the consultant is my husband - who also works out of the house. The other one is doing the back office work for consultant placements.

  1. Develop a space where you can work - bedroom office is fine, but have a desk where you work - and don’t do anything else.

  2. Get rid of distractions. Set aside time to work. And then make sure that you have set aside non work time for cleaning the house, getting laundry done, etc.

  3. Get rid of family distractions - dogs, kids, cats, etc.

  4. Make sure that you get people time - schedule networking lunches out with regularity - at least once a week. Old coworkers. Friends. Current coworkers who are also working out of their homes. People from the same consulting firm. People introduced to you by people. This not only helps the isolation, but increases the viability of being a long term consultant.

  5. Make sure to attend all phone meetings you have. Its easy to lose track of time when your cube neighbor doesn’t say “aren’t you coming to the standup” - set alarms. Again, helps with isolation, but also lets people know you are working, not watching The Price is Right.

  6. Should it take off, consider a cheap one person space rental. We just rented an office so that I can go there when he is driving me batty - or he can go there when he needs to work without distractions (I, of course, don’t drive him batty :)).

Also, make sure you talk to an accountant as to the best way to structure consulting. If you are in as a W-2 employee there isn’t a lot you can do - but if you are 1099 or set up as a corp, you can do a lot to structure yourself to pay less taxes. Most of the consultants I know (and all the ones we work with in our business) work and prefer to work a corp to corp model.

13

My wife worked from home for maybe a dozen years, starting in the early 90s. She was a translator and charged by the word. Since she was a good deal faster than her former colleagues, this worked out well in terms of pay/hour. She did have a partner (her former office manager, who actually invited her to join her) and talked to her regularly. We were empty nesters, so she could set aside one of the now unused bedrooms as an office. The only real expenses were a computer and a printer. But she was able to deduct 1/7 of most of the household costs, heating, electricity, …, half the telephone (and eventually, half the internet).

Off topic: at first she received the texts by courrier and returned the finished translation the same way. Then she got a fax machine and mostly used that. Later on, the customer would give her an account on their computer and she would use a dialup modem to get the text and eventually return the translation. Then everyone had email and we got a DSL.

14

Double dog dittoes on the dedicated space/hours/interruption suggestions.

When I’ve worked from home – both corporate and when writing my dissertation – I found that I was more focused when I showered and got dressed before commencing work, as it signalled my brain that it was time to work (and not noodle around on the Dope for hours :D). I’m not talking a suit with heels, I aimed for donning a bra, pants, and t-shirt.

I also found that taking scheduled breaks and going on a walk at lunchtime helped with productivity and focus.

15

Yup, this too. Well, not the bra in my case.

And another one I thought of - at least once every week or two, I go work at a coffee shop for a few hours. Even though I’m not talking to anyone, the change of scenery and being out in public reduces the isolation.

16

I’ve worked from home off and on for years - sometimes on a few days a week basis, sometimes 40 hours a week, depending on where we lived at the time.

Sometimes I just sat on the bed and used a lap desk, sometimes I had a dedicated office - that part will depend on you and how able you are to be comfortable and concentrate.

My suggestions:

-Enable yourself to be organized. Set up a filing system to keep track of any paper trail you need (talk to accountant and/or HR) and get a small cabinet to keep all of your work stuff in.

-Get a real phone line and get a real set of headphones with a mic if you will be doing any conference calls. Conference calls and video calls are a good thing, btw, they allow interaction and they assure people that you are real and not just a money suck. Back to the phone. No matter how good your cell phone is you will hear complaints about line quality and static, etc. Just get a real phone line and make sure people can hear you loud and clear.

-Along the same lines, it’s worth just signing up for the fastest Internet in the area while you’re getting the phone. You can usually bundle and save money.

-Set up regular, planned interactions with your customers/main points of contact. There are two ways to do this and I recommend you do both. Phone meetings. 1 on 1s or team meetings, whichever is more appropriate for your situation. Every week. Even if you just end up “checking in” and chatting about the Dodgers and weather, and then summarizing the week, rather than hashing out issues. You should take the initiative on making sure that you are in regular touch with your customer. Always follow up with contact mechanism two, email. Summarize your work on a regular, pre-agreed basis, weekly is good. This week I did this. This accomplished the following on our checklist, or we are now 35% complete, or here is the data file, or whatever it is. Always follow up your meetings with a short summary email too. Great to talk today. Here’s what we covered. The action items are. As always, let me know if I missed anything. Talk again on Friday at 9.

-Get calendar software and use it. Microsoft Office is ubiquitous, but find something you like. Office is good because almost everyone you work with with use it and you can send invitations back and forth.

-Use a text/instant messenger app. Even better if you’re using one that your customers are using. Then they can see you’re online, they can ping you, etc. The idea is that you are present, even if you’re not there. Of course, mobile phones mean that you don’t have to be at your desk all the time, which is nice.

-Set a schedule and try to stick to it. If you’re generally working 6 hours, figure out which 6 hours on which 5 days you’ll work and block them out on your calendar. You can get up and feed the dog (at the office, you probably got up and walked to someone’s cube and chatted), but you can’t wash the car unless you move things around on the calendar to account for that.

-Get up, go out, and see people. Schedule meetings on the phone to interact during work. During “off” time, go for walks, go to the library, go stand outside. Really. I’m introverted myself and it’s very easy to turn into a closet dwelling hermit. Make sure you get a little air.

I suppose all this translates to you need to treat like a “real job” (it is) and you need to work to increase your visibility. In return, you do get a lot of flexibility in schedule and no commute.

All in all, I think it’s an awesome thing.

17

I’ve officially passed the mark where I’ve worked from home longer than I’ve worked in a physical office.

I agree with just about all what is said above, especially ddsun’s post.

Thinks that I think are especially important:

  • Get out of the house. Mr. Athena and I (he also works from home) spend more $$ going out at night than we would were we not working from home. I just gotta get out of the house minimum of 1 night a week, and preferably 2. This is an extra expense for sure, as we typically go out to eat or meet friends for drinks. It’s offset by not having to pay commuting costs, going out to lunch, work clothing, etc. Be ok with this; I’ve found trying to conserve money by not going out backfires.

  • One thing I don’t think others have mentioned: be professional. I not only work from home, I work with a LOT of people who also work from home. It’s extremely unprofessional to hear kids or other distracting noises in the background while trying to have a meeting.

  • If your work-from-home situation is one in which you are more or less expected to be there during certain work times, be there. My job doesn’t have official core hours, but at the same time, it’s also not the type where you can do ALL your work at night or during the weekends. Don’t be that one guy who everyone hates because you can never get in touch with him during normal working hours.

  • Take advantage of technology. If you work with a core group of people, set up a Slack (or similar) channel for ad-hoc questions & banter. Use Zoom (or similar) for video meetings. This not only makes things easier, it actually allows you to develop relationships with folks. I truly consider some of my workmates friends, because we are literally talking on Slack almost all day, every day. Sometimes it’s even work-related!

18

What Stuffy says especially. I worked from home for several years. And it was really hard to separate my work hours from my off hours. “I’ll just check my e-mail” tends to turn into an afternoon.

Another challenge is making it clear to everyone else that you are at work when you are at work. As well as making it clear to your clients/co-workers/boss/etc. that you are not at work when you are not at work. No, I can’t clean the bathrooms or make dinner while I work. No, I don’t answer the phone 24/7.
So
[ul][li]It’s convenient[/li][li]The commute is easy and you save money on gas[/li][li]It’s lonely[/li][li]Stress tends to carry over from work to home[/ul][/li]Regards,
Shodan

19

Doesn’t HAVE to be lonely. Totally depends on the situation. As I mentioned above, the place I work has a culture where there is a LOT of interaction and banter. I often find myself having to turn it off so I can actually get some work done.

On the other hand, this place has definitely been the exception, not the rule. The company has put a LOT of time & effort into making the remote workforce thing work, and it shows.

20

I’ve been working from home 2-3 days a week for the past several years. To expand on some of the above:

[ul]
[li] If you feel like you don’t have a good delineation between “at home” and “starting work” despite having a distinct working space and still doing the usual showering/shave/dressing routine, consider adding a step to the morning routine of just driving to the local coffee shop and then coming back. For some people that adds a psychological barrier between being at home with a work laptop open, and actually being on the clock.[/li][li] Have backup internet. You’re probably not paying for commercial/business connectivity at home and just using your home internet, and an outage, even a temporary one, is not desired. I use my cell phone’s hotspot as a failsafe, as even in a total power outage I can still stay online and connected until laptop and cell phone batteries run out.[/li][li] Remember “out of sight, out of mind”. If your coworkers/manager are still in the office and you’re telecommuting, you need to communicate twice as much to ensure that they don’t gradually forget to include you, or even worse, assume that you’re not working. [/li][/ul]