Pros and Cons of working from home

**Collaborative post**

The thing about being self-employed, working from home AND a mum is that you have to be organised. Depending on the complexity of your business, being self-employed requires excellent organisation skills. From the work itself to selling, marketing, accounting, legal, business strategy and more, there’s lots more to being self-employed than just providing services or products, so it’s important to make sure that you know what you’re doing and when you’re doing it, otherwise it could spiral out of control. And then there are the kids to think about! – I recommend keeping on top of things the best you can….I say this from experience – last year I left my tax return right up to the last minute then ended up with both kids off school poorly, it was a nightmare, and yes I do realise I need to take my own advice!

The upside of this is that you can also structure your own day. If you need a haircut, a holiday, a visit from the washing machine engineer etc, then you don’t have to schedule it around your workday by taking time off of work. If you know that you work best in the morning, or you need to take the morning off to focus on the kids or to watch their school assembly, then you can make sure that your day reflects that.

While working from home to most of the outside world seems great, it isn’t for everyone. It can be very lonely indeed and if you thrive on outside interaction then it probably won’t suit you at all. There are days when the only people I speak to during the day is Alexa or myself, yes it happens when you only have your own company sometimes. It does also mean that all your neighbours know you are home and you could end up taking in their parcels – I honestly don’t mind this as they are forever taking in mine, or that people assume that people you are home you can fit in lunches, coffee dates and long chats – what they seem to forget is that you are actually working while at home and that work does need doing.

A major con of working from home is the procrastinating because you are at home it is easy to get caught up in the other jobs which need doing around the home, so you end up loading the dishwasher, putting on another load of washing, hoovering and mopping the floor and before you know it an hour has passed and you aren’t going to get that important piece of work done before you have to collect the kids from school.

One of the ways I am looking into to combat this is by building a garden office, this means I can still enjoy the perks of working from home such as taking the kids to school, never missing assemblies or deliveries yet the household chore distractions can be forgotten for a little while as I would be outside of the house. A garden office could have a dual purpose as a summer house too so when the kids are happily playing on the trampoline or enjoying the paddling pool in the summer I could watch from there, without the risk of burning or getting wet. There lots to choose from over at moderngardenrooms.com

So how many of my readers work from home? What’s your biggest struggle when working from home? – One of my biggest distractions currently is trying to fit in some me time and binge-watching Netflix, speaking of which – I’m at a loss as what to watch next, do you have any suggestions?

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