I’ve been working from my home office for about 8 years now and I personally love it.  I work long distance for an architecture firm in Honolulu (as well as our sister office in Seoul, South Korea) and run my own design business, all from the comfort of my own home.  I won’t lie, a lot of days are spent working away in pajamas and that’s definitely a plus, but there are also a lot of cons as well when working from home.  Since I also have Land of Marvels as part of my work, I like many other bloggers, find myself from time to time looking at the pros and cons of working from home.  My one piece of advice before you start working from home is to really think about if your personality suits it – it’s one of those things that either works great for you or works terrible.  So if you’re considering it, or just trying to make your blog work at home more productive, here are the pros and cons of working from home from what I’ve learned over the past several years.

Pros

Flexible Work Schedule – One of my favorite things about working from home is how flexible my schedule can be.  If I need to run and do grocery shopping in the middle of the work day, I can.  If I need to have a repair person at home during part of the day, I can.  Because working from home offers you to run your own schedule, you are able to get a ton more of you “life” stuff done during the work day and still get your work done.

Healthier Lifestyle – I find I’m generally healthier working from home than in an office.  I’m able to make myself a healthy breakfast and lunch at home during my work day instead of eating out near my office.  I also find generally I get more sleep as well since I don’t have to commute to an office.

Less Distractions

I’m adding this as both a pro and a con – this as a pro is one of my favorite things about working from home: people aren’t stopping by my desk all day to ask me questions or interrupt my work.  I find I am more productive and work steadily for hours at a time at home since you have less distractions than in a typical office.

You Can Work in Your Pajamas if You Want To – I won’t lie, there are lots of days that I’m working all day in my pajamas.  The nice thing about working from home is that it allows you to save the time you would getting up and getting ready to go to the office and literally just jumping into work.  I get up super early and I find that between 4:30 and 10am, I am my most productive.  I usually get up and work in my sweats or pajamas for those hours, get a ton done and then shower and get ready for the day while I wait to hear back from emails I’ve sent that morning and it works really well for me.

Cons

Less Work/Life Balance – I’m not super great at work/life balance, but I also don’t really need to be.  I run my own business so I have to be “on” always for clients if needed.  I don’t switch off at 6pm or whenever and am answering emails as needed into the evening and early in the mornings every day.  It doesn’t bother me too much but it’s definitely a con of working from home as your work and computer is right there.

Less Social Interaction

I don’t miss this very much from working in an office but I know a lot of people do – the social interaction you get with colleagues and employees.  I don’t mind the solitude but before you start working from home, make sure that won’t get to you.  I’ve had friends that this really bothered and made them feel depressed with so much alone time.  So think about how that would affect you personally.

More Distractions – The flip side of less distractions as a pro is that there are definitely distractions at home too.  The laundry needs to get done.  The new episode of my favorite show is on.  There are things that are going to distract you from work at home also, so be able to say no to those things in order to get your work done.

Work from Home Stigma – There is still this weird stigma that people have against working from home and I get it a lot.  People have a really hard time understanding, A) what it is I actually do for a living and B) how I spend all day at home and what I get done.  I find it more so from the older generations as I think among millennial, working from home is becoming way more common, but there is still a weird vibe I get from people when I say I work from home.

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