On Working From Home

The Oatmeal's comic on working from home illustrates very well, the good and the bad sides of working from home. For the past two weeks, I have been working from home as an indie game developer, and I've had my own share of the benefits and (mostly) problems faced when working from home.

In my case however, working as an independent developer poses a greater challenge than being a work-from-home freelancer. You don't work for anyone but you and that's all the more reason to stay in discipline.

1. You get to make your own schedule! Work when you want to, eat when you want, and sleep when you want to.

2. For the time spent working at home, the productivity multiplies several fold compared to working in an office.

3. You can finally find time for all the activities you wanted to do! Read a book, play an instrument, draw and paint, or learn a new language.

4. Travel gets a lot easier. You no longer have to take a leave from work. You can work from wherever you go!

1. You have to make a schedule. If you don't plan out each of your days, staying in discipline becomes a nightmare. Sleep times go off, meals are skipped and there is a lot less work done.

2. For someone who doesn't go out much, working from home can get terribly boring and lonely. Finding a place to visit every now and then to feel refreshed becomes necessary.

3. Unless you have great control over your self will, often you will find yourself spending time on "unproductive" class of activities. You'd be watching movies and TV shows instead of reading a book or learning something.

For the latter half of my new work-from-home journey, the progress has been leaning towards the bad parts. In particular because of lack of a schedule and not going out so often. In the coming week I plan to fix that by creating a fixed schedule for certain things certain times of day. For instance, I have set apart 3 hours for "no Internet work" each day, and about 2 hours for a productive activity like reading a book or drawing. That still leaves a lot of room for other things, and I plan to add in more items to the schedule as soon as this little one is perfected.

Somebody's uncle said something wise not so long ago: "With great power, comes great responsibility." Working from home is a great new way of making money doing what you love doing, but doing so comes at the cost of being a much more disciplined person.