The Reality of Working from Home

[Tuumble]

My reality of working from home is either really similar to your experience or the polar opposite. You see, we start off the best of intentions but whether we like or not we can find ourselves unavoidably distracted from the real purpose of being out of the office.

I don't have a home study so I spend my time at the dining room table using a wireless Internet connection to stay in touch with the company base. This is fine if there's no-one else in the house but makes effective working very difficult if the wife and kids are at home.

Here's an example time log of a typical day:

8:30am - I would normally be heading off for work at this time though being home has made me a convenient back-up to help on the school run. I cannot argue too much as I'm not due to start work till 9:00am but I do however lament the rarity of being able to spend time alone in my own home. There is almost always something going on and with three children under nine it can be a noisy place indeed. When I get that opportunity for a bit of quiet I try to grab it if I can.

9:10am - Back home again but I fancy a coffee before I get cracking so I make one for me and my wife. We get chatting and before long another 20 minutes have passed. That's OK because we have flexible working hours anyway but I really must get on. I sit down to work and begin on the emails. I get a couple of instant messenger prods from both work and from friends which delays me a little longer. My wife tells me she's going shopping but will be back in time to pick our son up from nursery at midday. Great - peace at last!

10:45am - Elevenses comes early where I come from so I make another coffee. For once I have the chance to turn on the TV and watch something other than Power Rangers or Hannah Montana so I'll take five minutes to see what's on. Big mistake!

11:20am - My wife's phone call interrupts me and she says that she's been delayed and can I pick-up my son from nursery. Oh, Joy! Fortunately this is not too far away but it means that there's not that long before I have to leave with impromptu baby-sitting duty chores to perform too.

12:05pm - We're home. Well, as it's lunch-time I may as well grab something for myself as well as my boy. My wife shouldn't be too long now anyway.

12:40pm - C'mon Jo - this is ridiculous! I try my best to get back to working and the TV comes on as a substitute in the child care stakes but it isn't long before requests for additional snacks and game playing are made.

1:00pm - My wife returns saying that she needs something printing off for a school governor meeting and can I (quickly) do it for her. This is fine until I realize it means that she'll be going to a meeting straight after to school at 3:150pm. Though never said this is clearly a euphemism meaning 'Can you collect the children from school at 3:00pm'. Sigh...

2:45pm - Time for a quick coffee and a catch up on email and a couple of phone calls. School beckons.

4:10pm - The last hour has been hell. All three kids have been involved in a three-way fight for the TV remote and someone has knocked blackcurrant squash all over the kitchen floor. It's no good, this home working just isn't working so I decide to write the rest off the business day apart from periodically checking and posting messages and emails to make it look like that all is well at the office.

8:15pm - All the kids are in bed but I want to chill-out for a bit before playing catch-up. Before long it's gone 9:30pm and I'm thinking about whether it's worth starting again at such an hour but I do what I can to make it look as if my day at home really was in the interest of the company.

10:50pm - Time for another coffee. Not a wise idea at this hour but I'm beginning to flag. I decide to quickly go on one of my forums and subsequently waste another 40 minutes. I'll just do another half an hour and I'll go to bed I think...

12:00am - Midnight and all of a sudden I'm wide awake - I knew I shouldn't have had that coffee. I decide to turn the TV on to wind down and before long I'm watching re-runs of 70s sitcoms and America's most wanted.

As I stare into the middle distance I reflect on the day. I've been working on and off for 15 hours but probably could say that only five or six resembled anything like being effective. Woe betide me if I decide to give up the day job to become a writer!

[Ali from The Office Diet]

Hehe, fantastic, that made me laugh :-D

I have Tuesdays off at the moment (for writing/blogging/etc) and it does surprise me how quickly time can get eaten up by a groceries-trip, making lunch, phone calls, etc...

Ali

[1000feet]

I worked late at night at first, but I've learned to re-arrange things so that I finish my work during the day and forget about it after supper. I don't have a "head office" so I can schedule work any time I want as long as my clients agree on the deadline, but it works better this way.

Your wife would probably like it if you weren't working all night - maybe you could make a deal that if she agrees not to interrupt you from 9-5 aside from 45-60 minutes of breaks you'll do all your work during the day. That might mean she doesn't leave you as a babysitter as much, but that's how it would be if you left for work every day... if you are spending a big part of the day not working you just have to acknowledge that it's cutting in to your productivity and you need to make up for it somewhere.

[fcrdash]

I work from home, mostly. I work alot from my car, too. I believe that I am more producting since finding this blog and zenhabits. The other thing that helps alot is being an early riser. My day starts at 4am. There is no better time for me to string together continuous hours of writing. By the time my daughter and her daughter (2 years old) get up, I have made a 4 hour dent in the days projects. There is always noise and chaos from 8 until about 9:30 when the two of them get off to their day time places. I usually get part two of the day started at about 10am and go until 3. After that time my brain really isn't sharp or analytical, so I do some organizing and planning. Sometimes I'll watch Oprah, if there is something I find interesting. I may talk to customers after 5pm because that is when they are available, but hopefully, I have prepared for those calls and they don't require a pencil, paper and calculator.

It has taken about six months to truly make working at home much more productive than it was. I fumbled around for years.

[Ree]

I love those days when I can work from home. There's nothing in the world as comfy as working in your jammies

I've posted before about my to-do list. It gets me through every day with few wasted moments.

[dmauder]

I work from a home office (and from my car). To be honest, I find that the only way to stay productive is to stop reading all the blogs & websites about how to stay organized and be productive. Instead, I just STAY PRODUCTIVE and ORGANIZED. And, I just DO the stuff that needs to be done instead of thinking about it, or reading about how other people are doing it.

It's amazing how much time we waste reading and thinking about stuff instead of just DOING it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I struggle daily to keep myself on task.

Dave

[Ree]

Don't know how I forget this tip because it's a great motivator:

THINK ABOUT THE MONEY!

[Bruce Achterberg]

Clearly the answer is to... get rid of your kids.

Either that, or shut them up. I hear duck-tape works wonders.

Note to self: Instead of reading productivity books, pass on procreation instead.

(Yes, I am kidding. That's my wacko sense of humour at play, turned up to about 80%.)

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by dmauder

I work from a home office (and from my car). To be honest, I find that the only way to stay productive is to stop reading all the blogs & websites about how to stay organized and be productive. Instead, I just STAY PRODUCTIVE and ORGANIZED. And, I just DO the stuff that needs to be done instead of thinking about it, or reading about how other people are doing it.

It's amazing how much time we waste reading and thinking about stuff instead of just DOING it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I struggle daily to keep myself on task.

Dave

My internet was down for about 2 weeks, and I had similar experiences to you, Dave.

What I've learned from having no internet access for a while:

I realised that a lot of what I do on the internet is largely unimportant.

On the other hand, some of what I do is very important, and my reliance on the internet for those things is almost essential, so not having internet can be very debilitating.

Interestingly, I found maintaining connections with real people was the most important task, with things like reading information and using various services being important, but not essential.

My ISP (Internode, Australia) offers a certain amount of free dial-up hours per month if your DSL goes offline, so I'll be making the necessary changes to make use of that so I can still reasonably maintain these important connections.

In true Steve (#200) style, I encourage all of you to avoid the internet for a week (a week isn't long). Alternatively, if you can't do that, whenever you use the internet, ask "what are the essential things I need to do?" This should help you focus on doing what is truly important, and raise your awareness of the other things that, while desirable, aren't essential. Then you can consciously choose what to do with your time/energy and reclaim those hours you invest in internet usage habits that don't serve you.

Admittedly, now that I've got the net back, I'm kind of slipping a bit, but it is the weekend, my biceps are trashed from the curls I did two days ago, and my hearing is slightly sensitive from being around loud noises for too long (don't ask), so I figure I can slip a bit and get back on track on Monday. (I too "work" from home, it just so happens that my "work" isn't yet directly profitable.)

[localman]

I can relate to the coffee, but couldn't handle all the tv.

[JimOfferman]

Lovely story of a 'wonderful' day...

Although, to be completely fair, I feel you should compare this time log to one of a day spent at the office. Can't speak for you, of course, but the situation at office I work in is not exactly that of peace, tranquility and unhampered productivity...

[yogesh sarkar]

Originally Posted by fcrdash

I work from home, mostly. I work alot from my car, too. I believe that I am more producting since finding this blog and zenhabits. The other thing that helps alot is being an early riser. My day starts at 4am. There is no better time for me to string together continuous hours of writing. By the time my daughter and her daughter (2 years old) get up, I have made a 4 hour dent in the days projects. There is always noise and chaos from 8 until about 9:30 when the two of them get off to their day time places. I usually get part two of the day started at about 10am and go until 3. After that time my brain really isn't sharp or analytical, so I do some organizing and planning. Sometimes I'll watch Oprah, if there is something I find interesting. I may talk to customers after 5pm because that is when they are available, but hopefully, I have prepared for those calls and they don't require a pencil, paper and calculator.

It has taken about six months to truly make working at home much more productive than it was. I fumbled around for years.

Couldn’t agree more, if you feel you can’t during particular hours of the day, wake up early or go to sleep late so you can work without any distractions.

[jackieulmer]

Discipline is truly the kay and of course one of the more difficult things to master at first.

I have learned to get control of my home schedule just like my work time. So, even though I am home, I try not to do laundry during my work times. I only answer my home phone if it is one of my children or my husband.

It's been tough, but I have conditioned my friends that I am working and not available for chit chat and stuff. Now, since I am the boss, that doesn't mean I won't break away for a fun girl's lunch of I am on task with what needs to get done that day.

Once I set up a weekly and then daily action plan, that made a big difference. That is what creates productivity and results.

And, as was mentioned above, focusing on the money and not having a boss keeps me right on track!

Good luck!

--