successful home working
Homeworking dilemmas
Challenges faced by home workers and ways to deal with them
Why are home workers so hard on themselves?
192 months ago
by Judy
in Homeworking dilemmas
I interviewed over 50 home workers when I was doing the research for my book Work from Home, and one of the most striking realisations to come from that research was how hard home workers tend to be on themselves.
When we go out to work we constantly deal with interruptions from colleagues, exchange news and gossip, make coffee, struggle to make the printer work etc – and still go home at the end of the day with a feeling of a job well done.
Yet when we work from home, we want and expect to be productive 100% of the time and unwanted jobs that crop up like uncooperative technology, unexpected phone calls and dealing with glitches all feel like wasted time.
We often feel guilty when we’re not at our desks working during normal office hours and yet the freedom to work odd hours to suit ourselves is one of the reasons we choose to work from home. The old habits cling on after we’ve left the office environment behind, just like cartoon characters keep running after they’ve gone over the cliff!
You may feel you have to be available throughout working hours in case you miss a call from an existing or potential client. But do you expect professionals to be instantly available whenever you call? Of course not, and if they were you’d probably start to worry about how good they are if nobody is using them!
Manage the situation by returning calls promptly and explaining you were in a meeting/on another call/focusing 100% on an important piece of work, and people will respect you for your professionalism and want to work with you.
It can be so tempting to scrub out plans to go and meet a friend or take a walk if someone suggests that time for a meeting or call. But then you can end up wearing yourself out by never freeing up the time to get refreshed and replenished. Stick to your guns and show a little kindness to yourself!
Home working bag lady Part 2
133 months ago
by Judy
in Homeworking dilemmas
Bags have been much on my mind again recently, with a trip to London last week and another yesterday for the Everywoman conference. I haven’t yet found my perfect mobile working bag, although this leather one tweeted by Karen of White Ink comes pretty close.
Actually I’ve come to the conclusion that the solution is to buy a smaller, lighter laptop, not a new bag, but that’s a rather steeper investment and will have to wait for a while. And of course if I got an iPhone I could also dispense with my Filofax and A-Z and float about almost weightlessly!
In the meantime I’ve bought a very smart and spacious wine-coloured bag for events like the conference, where my favourite satchel and purple suede sack just don’t cut it! It’s the most grown-up bag I’ve ever had and I must say it’s rather a treat to be able to find everything instead of it all falling in a heap at the bottom.
With impeccable timing Sarah Evans of RightBag.co.uk has tweeted to say her new website is up and running and providing ‘funky tech bags for women’. She has a colourful selection of bags, cases and sleeves that’s much more interesting than most of the stuff you find in shops, and a good range of prices.
I’ll take a picture of my smart, ladylike bag soon, but in the meantime do let me know if you’ve discovered any clever solutions for home workers on the move.
When is home working a bad idea?
123 months ago
by Judy
in Homeworking dilemmas
I was recently talking to a long-standing home worker who’s going through a divorce (unfortunately not an amicable one) and he said something that got me thinking – ‘I need a job’. What he meant was that spending long periods of time alone in his home office was not the best way to deal with all the emotions and upheaval going on in his life.
For me though, working from home was actually a help at the end of my marriage, although admittedly my situation was different in that we were able to agree on all aspects of the parting of the ways.
When I felt down I’d just go to bed for an hour or two. I’m a great believer in the restorative power of sleep to tackle all kinds of ills and it never let me down. I think I was able to come to terms with the massive change in my life quicker than if I’d had to go out to work every day and switch my brain into totally different concerns until after 5pm.
Other people I know have abandoned their home office after the birth of a child and when they felt they needed more input than home working could give them. Are there any times in life when working from home might be a bad idea? Would you go out and get a job, or are there ways to work around it?
Autumn changes to the home working wardrobe
83 months ago
So our Indian Summer is over and temperatures are back to ‘normal for the time of year’. What does that mean for the home worker who often spends hours a day seated at a computer, a situation guaranteed to chill the bones of the most warmblooded soul?
For me it means beginning the layering process, moving into T shirts with sleeves and jumpers and putting a pair of socks over those chilly desk-bound feet. I’m determined not to go into sheepskin boots yet, however, however much I love them. I’m hoping to hold out till November as it’s a sign of approaching winter I’m not quite ready to accept. Nor will my fleece blanket be introduced to the office chair until we start to have frosts.
What are your home working sartorial concessions to the changing season? Do you welcome the chance to wear woolly jumpers or try to hold off the evil moment as long as possible?
And what do you wear when you go out for meetings and events? I’ve always had difficulties in balancing a professional appearance with the freedom of being a home worker and not subject to the office dress code. I turned up for my last event at Central, which coincided with the Indian Summer, in a brightly coloured summer dress and cardigan and was taken aback to receive several compliments. Was it because I was wearing a skirt for a change, or because of the colour, or a mixture of both? Whichever, it’s made me rethink my default dark trousers and range of tops position.
Perhaps I don’t need to be so hung-up about looking professional and just wear what I know suits me and makes me feel good. I’d love to hear what both male and female home workers find the best approach for away-from-home working.
It’s frustrating when a label that’s been a stand-by suddenly decides to rebrand. I only discovered Kew about 18 months ago and now it’s become Kew.159 and is obviously aimed at a younger market. Which is odd considering that the population is ageing and that the bulk of spending power lies with the (relatively) oldies.
So I’m watching Mary Portas’ new retail venture with interest – she claims to be dressing the ‘grown-up woman over 40′. Anyone checked out her new store in Oxford Street yet?
And not to neglect you chaps who are interested in how you look. Take a look at Lifeover35.co.uk, a blog written by home working journalist Guy Clapperton about clothes, gadgets and style.
If you can work anywhere, how do you ever switch off?
84 months ago
Technology enables us to work remotely in all sorts of places that not long ago would never have been considered suitable – bedrooms, hotels, airport lounges and so on. This has given many people the freedom to ditch the commute and live in a location of their own choosing, but it also brings its own challenges. Chief among those is the danger of being constantly “at work” when there is no clear delineation between on and off time.
Many of us who are home or mobile workers are doing something we are passionate about. We have given up jobs that failed to fire us up in order to freelance or set up a small business that uses a talent. In my own experience, I don’t feel I’m “working” in the same sense I was when I was employed; I am simply expressing myself in a way that feels natural, so working at what would traditionally be considered odd hours is not particularly a problem.
Despite this, after a while I started to feel that I could be more creative and productive if I chose my work hours more carefully and actively planned to get out of the house. I found that meeting people, and not necessarily people connected with my business, gave me a boost that never happened at my desk. I therefore pop out to meet a friend for coffee these days at whatever time suits us both.
I’ve come to believe that successful home working means creating your own schedules, regardless of the conventional 9 to 5. The most creative home and mobile workers learn to switch on and off at any time in order to meet deadlines and – more importantly – give their brains a break and fuel their imaginations.
This ability only seems to come with experience. Most new home workers stick to their old office patterns for a while before becoming more aware of their freedom. I’m interested in this way that work is developing and how the boundary between so-called work and leisure is blurring.
How do you mix up your time? Does it feel different from what you have done before?
This post was first published on www.workshifting.com, the site for people who work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and their homes every bit as much as the office.
Working from home and cake – perfect partners
75 months ago
So I’ve already told you about the unqualified success of last week’s How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide, which was a Marketing Masterclass with the irrepressible James Layfield. But naughtily I haven’t written about the previous month’s group. (Could it be any coincidence that the subject was procrastination?)
Our special guest was Clare Flynn Levy, a hedge fund manager until having her first baby converted her to the delights of flexible working. Clare is now the MD of Flexpaths, providing software to help organisations manage flexible working, and the founder of the Equilibrant Network for senior executives interested in flexible work. She was the perfect guest, and informed and entertained us equally with her experiences of combining work and home life.
It was interesting to see how, although we all share the challenges of procrastination while working mainly from home, people vary enormously in their response to it and how they overcome it. One of my principle beliefs about working at home successfully is that each individual has to find the best way for themselves, and so reading prescriptive articles (that you must have a separate home office, for example) is not necessarily helpful.
The great thing about these monthly groups is the opportunity to hear about different ways of doing things, while feeling encouraged by realising that the challenges – which we often feel are ours alone – are in fact shared.
One of the attendees, Claire Melvin of Claire’s Cakes, brought along some cute mini cupcakes for us, some with my house logo in green icing, which was a lovely thought. And I didn’t notice anybody procrastinating about eating one!
I’ve subsequently seen a photo of Eva Takacs’ newly cluttercleared workspace and will post it soon on the Home Office page. Eva, the founder of The Vent Service, was bemoaning the untidy state of her sofa, where she works with her laptop, at the first two groups, but now she has transformed it. Not only is the group an inspiring night out, but it gets good results too!
