Working from home is often the ideal solution for Moms who are looking to maintain their careers or build businesses while also caring for their kids.
However, there is a bit of a debate about whether it is a good or bad thing for the individual, which can make it tough for women to decide whether it would be a good solution for them or not.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of things nobody ever tells you about working from home so you can make up your own mind.
The feeling of freedom is amazing
When you work from home you don’t necessarily have to get up early or work from the hours of 9-5.
As this piece from Northeastern University shows, you don’t even have to stay in the same country, and if you run your own business or freelance, you almost never have to do work you hate, and that is so liberating, it really is.
People don’t think you’re really working
Although there are a lot of amazing things about working from home, there’s something that’s really annoying; people not believing that you’re actually doing any work at all.
There are so many people who think that WFH is a blow-off where you can sit in your PJs all day watching Netflix and doing very little of substance.
This means they quite often ask you to run errands on their behalf or interrupt you when you’re in the middle of an important call and it can be REALLY annoying.
That being said, you shouldn’t let this put you off. You just need to get serious with them, point out how hard you’re actually working and set some rules about what they can and cannot expect from you during working hours. That way you won’t have to deal with this kind of stuff at all.
Your productivity goes through the roof
Something that a lot of people who are new to WFH don’t expect is the improvement in their productivity levels, but numerous studies have shown that people who work from home tend to be a lot more productive than those who do not.
This isn’t really surprising when you consider the fact there is no office chitter-chatter, no pointless meetings and no set working times that force you to eke out your work over 8 hours when there is only really enough for four, to consider. That means you can get more done in less time and put your feet up or spend more time with the kids.
Your health improves
Okay, so I can’t absolutely say that this is the case for everyone who starts WFH, but anecdotally, when you don’t have to worry about a stressful commute or office arguments, your mental health gets a huge boost.
You feel less stressed and depressed, more productive and generally happier because you have more autonomy over your life.
Sure, you have the stress of worrying if the kids will burst in on your video call AGAIN, but that’s a far nicer problem to have than a long, torturous commute.
Cabin fever is real but you can beat it
I’d be lying if I said that it never gets lonely when you’re WFH, but this shouldn’t put you off from doing what you want to do because it’s a pretty easy problem to solve.
As long as you have a laptop or tablet, you can take your work out to the local coffee shop, park or communal working space and get some company for a while (as soon as lockdown ends)… oh, how I miss those days!
Do you work from home? What insights do you have to share?
Image credit: Pixabay – CCO Licence
