Do you Work from Home or in an Office?

[Frankie Brown]

I work from home and I would be honored to be your friend.

Benefits of Working from home:

1. Save time spent on commuting(not to mention, saving money on gas). Did you know that, according to a recent survey, "the average person in the United States spends 51 minutes a day commuting to work? That's 221 hours a year, or 9.2 days." Working at home cuts out the hassles of traffic jams. It cuts down on speeding on those days when one is running late.

2. Working from your house turns your normal family home into an office. You are your own boss and you can start 'work' whenever you please. You don't have to dress up or put on makeup or, if you are a man, you don't have to shave if you don't want to. The best part of using your home as your office is that you can deduct normal house expenses. You can also deduct travel and local transportation expenses. Other deductions include software, books, subscriptions, advertising, telephone services, insurance and retirement plans. You can even deduct against the depreciation of your home. And when it comes to taxes, can't we use all the help we can get?

3. Working from home means less stress. "25% of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives and 75% of employees believe the worker has more on-the-job stress than a generation ago. Working at home reduces the amount of stress that is normally associated with working for someone else. Stress can make you feel physically sick, that is why so many working days are lost to stress in today’s environment."
I can personally testify to this fact. When I worked as a Produce Manager in a local grocery, my blood pressure was usually sky-high. After I started working at home, it went down and has stayed down. My doctor came to the conclusion that my high blood pressure was a direct result of stress.

Benefits of Working Out of an Office:

1. Focus - "It is hard to work from home. Being forced to drive to the office helps provide a transition between home life and career life." When I worked outside the home, it took me very little time to be ready to start working. Being at home, it is very easy to want to spend a couple more minutes getting breakfast or talking on the phone, etc. before sitting down to work.

2. Higher Profile - "Out of sight is good. Out of mind is bad. You never want your boss to forget who you are or how important you are. Being buried in the basement where you are not seeing co-workers, clients, and managers is probably bad when promotion time comes around." That being said, you strive much harder to do your very best.

3. Fewer Hours - Since I've been working from home, I am very willing to work some overtime. I also sneak in a couple hours here and there to get ahead (or keep up) on projects. It is very tempting to just check the emails or just spend a few minutes reviewing the project; most of which you end up doing for free.

All in all, I prefer to work from home. Especially since I've started making money doing it.
If you don't work from your house, I highly recommend it. If you're ready to make that transition, then why not start looking around?