The COVID-19 pandemic completely upended the modern workplace. From quarantines and social distancing to the “Great Resignation,” times have certainly changed.
More people are working from home than ever before. And companies are learning that modern tools and technologies make it possible — even if it can be challenging.
Whether that’s for better or worse, we’ve yet to see. But here’s what we do know about remote work and telecommuting.
Pros
For many people, working from home has always been a dream. Here are several reasons why remote work may be appealing:
1. Less stress
There’s an old saying: “Home is where the heart is.” Most people love coming home after work. It’s nice to be in your own space, close to your loved ones.
No matter where you work, you’re going to experience stress. It comes at us from all sides in our high-paced and always-connected lives. But anything you could do to reduce it would be a help.
2. Reclaimed time
In 2019, the average American commute was almost 30 minutes each way. And most people get an hour off for lunch. Lunch may seem like your own time, but unless you work five minutes from home, it’s not really your time. You don’t have much to do during that hour except eat or work.
Commutes and lunch breaks add up to two hours per day — or 10 hours per week, or 500 hours per year — dedicated to work that you’ll never get back. Those hours are unpaid and a mandatory requirement of most jobs. What could you do with an extra 500 hours?
3. Fewer distractions
How many times a day does a coworker interrupt your work? Maybe they want to borrow your red Swingline stapler. Or maybe it’s a manager asking you to add a cover sheet to your TPS reports.
It can be really hard to get into a flow state with constant interruptions. And if you have an open office plan, it can be even harder.
Granted, there may also be people at home who interrupt your work. But there will be fewer of them. If you can create a dedicated space to work in and set some rules for family members or roommates to follow, you’ll have a lot more peace.
4. Less pressure
If you have a project that five people are waiting on, you’re going to feel a lot of pressure. But if they can’t physically walk up to your desk and ask about it, it’s easier to ignore them.
You may need to give or receive occasional feedback on whatever you’re working on, but if you’re not physically present, you have more control over interactions with others.
5. Better work-life balance
Most people are at work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. When everyone is working the same hours, businesses run more smoothly.
The problem is that those daytime hours apply to doctors, teachers, and many shops as well. There are only so many hours in the week to get things done if you’re working the same hours as everyone else.
If you’re working from home, you have more flexibility to, say, take the kids to the doctor or pick them up from soccer practice. Heck, if you want to take them out for ice cream in the park in the afternoon, you can do that too.
6. More efficient communication
It may seem like it’s faster to get an answer to a question in person — but it’s also possible that someone will answer your one quick question with a long-winded explanation.
Then they could follow that up with a question for you, which could then lead to a conversation. Next thing you know, 20 minutes have gone by and you’ve forgotten what you even asked about in the first place.
There are plenty of communication tools like email, Slack, and video meetings that make sharing information efficient and easy. Not only do they keep the conversation focused, but you also have a complete record of it.
7. More comfort
You can sit at your own desk, sipping your favorite drink from your favorite mug, wearing whatever makes you most comfortable, and still be productive. Or you can put on a business suit and sit in a worn-out chair under fluorescent lights all day. Which would you prefer?
8. Access to all your stuff
There are a lot of digital nomads right now. Not only do they work remotely, but they also do so while traveling. They often live out of converted vans, RVs, or even backpacks. There are a lot of amazing photos of these people hanging out in beautiful locations with million-dollar views.
There’s a lot you don’t hear about those nomadic lifestyles. Things can be harder than the pictures let on, but there are advantages as well. One subtle but important advantage is that they’re always near all of their worldly possessions.
As a remote worker, you never have to worry about forgetting to bring something with you to work. It’s all right there at home.
9. Less expensive
When your stomach is rumbling and you’ve got the coffee crash jitters, you want some real food. The hungrier you are, the less appealing that leftover pasta you brought from home will seem.
But if you’re at home, you can always cook yourself a nice meal for lunch. Maybe it’s just chopping up some fresh veggies for a salad. No matter what you make, cooking for yourself is always going to be cheaper — and healthier — than eating out every day.
10. Better health
They say that sitting is the new smoking. Anyone who’s ever sat in an office chair for eight hours a day knows the back and shoulder pain it can cause. Our bodies were meant to be in motion, not sitting for hours at a time.
If you work from home, you can take short breaks throughout the day to lift weights for a couple of minutes, do a few push-ups, or even knock out a handful of burpees. You can also customize your workspace to meet your needs — with a standing desk, for example. With more movement during the day, you’ll be healthier overall.
Cons
Many people fail to realize that working from home isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Many of its advantages also come with disadvantages.
1. More stress
Loneliness is actually a significant psychological stressor. We’re a social species, and if you live alone, working from home may cut you off from a main source of social interaction.
2. Time management difficulties
When you’re at work, your day is broken down into hours. Chances are, you arrive at eight, you take lunch at noon, and you leave at five.
The thing is that when you work from home, time gets fuzzier. Let’s say you have a meeting at 10 a.m. tomorrow. But you’re totally wrapped up in a great show on Netflix, so you stay up until 2 a.m.
Before going to bed, you decide that sleep is more important than a schedule and set your alarm for 9:50 a.m. Then you wake up, brush your hair, throw on a professional top or a suit jacket and tie, and hop on the video call.
That day really starts at 11 a.m. And since you skipped breakfast, you’re probably already hungry. But you want to get a few hours of work in first, and lunch finally happens at 2 p.m.
Can you see the problem here? If you schedule tasks around the hours of the day, you’re going to be totally thrown off at this point. Do you start the day with the task you usually do when you first show up at the office or with the one you usually do at 11 a.m.?
3. More distractions
So you think having a boss and coworkers show up at your desk is distracting? Imagine when it’s a toddler instead.
If you can work from a room where you can close the door and have a partner who can watch the kids, it might be OK. But if you can’t separate yourself from the chaos of family life, working from home can become unbearable.
4. Less accountability
Some people are self-starters. They can manage their time and maintain a routine in any environment. But most of us need a gentle kick in the pants to get going.
It helps a lot to have someone check in on you or collaborate with you. Knowing that you can’t let another human being down is a huge motivator.
But working from home gives us a lot more wiggle room to goof off. Having someone randomly pop up over your shoulder to check up on you can make a huge difference, and some people really need it.
5. Blurred lines between work and life
As mentioned earlier, if you work from home, you have more time for personal needs and family. The problem is that the two can blend into each other.
If something from the office is really demanding your attention, there may not be much you can do about it from home. You just have to get on top of it tomorrow.
But if you work from home, you can work on it at 9 p.m. or 2 a.m. It goes the other way too.
Your family may have demands as well. Your kids might be sick and need more love and attention. You might find yourself doing chores during work hours.
If you aren’t good at keeping your work and home life separate, things can get really messy.
6. More difficult communication
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact number, but it’s pretty well accepted that at least 50 percent of all communication is nonverbal. We speak with gestures, body language, eye contact, subtext, facial expressions, tone of voice, and more.
We lose much of that communication when we connect with people over the internet. Some people are more reliant on that kind of communication than others, so communication breakdown can happen more often.
7. A lack of structure
A few of the other cons have already touched on this. It’s hard to organize time. More structure and discipline are necessary when there’s less accountability. And it’s a challenge to keep work and home life separate.
Each one of those represents a bigger issue. It’s very hard to keep yourself organized. As an office worker, you often have more organization. That may not be the case at home.
8. Easy access to distracting entertainment
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by work? Or maybe you’re just bored? How about a quick Xbox break? Or maybe just one episode of that show you’ve been streaming to help break up the monotony?
Three hours later, you’re sitting on the couch with the controller in your hand. Or you’ve just finished that series, and oops — you just missed a deadline.
Sure, you can sneak a few minutes of YouTube videos on your phone at work, but the risk of becoming consumed is much lower.
9. Potentially more expensive
Even though you may save money on eating out and fueling your vehicle, there are more expenses to consider. And if your company is a total cheapskate, there could be many more still.
Let’s start with electricity. Have you ever tried to focus on work when you’re shivering cold or sweating from heat? Uncomfortable temperatures can make working very unpleasant. And you may find yourself blasting the AC or heat year-round. That can ring up a large electricity bill that you wouldn’t have to pay if you weren’t home all the time.
There’s also the cost of internet, furniture, and office equipment like your computer.
Your employer covers most of that when you work out of an office. They may be less likely to cover all of that for home workers.
10. Potentially more sedentary
You can get up, move around, and take frequent walks when working from home. But will you?
You may be in a chair all day whether you’re working from home or an office. But at home, you could find yourself going from office chair to couch to bed without much exercise at all.
Even going to work involves walking to the car or train and walking around the office. It’s not much motion, but it’s better than nothing.
Bonus: Tools and tips to make remote work easier
You can address a lot of the cons of remote work through discipline and organization. Developing discipline is easier said than done, but you can empower yourself with the right tools and practices.
Educate yourself or your team
There are so many books on productivity, you almost need to be an expert in productivity just to manage the list. However, some books stand out from the crowd. Here are two bestsellers that will definitely help you work better from home.
- Atomic Habits by James Clear: This book teaches you to create habits that will stick for years. It does so by teaching you that it’s OK to start small. But it gets very deep and shows you why we form the habits we do and how to break or create them.
- Getting Things Done by David Allen: GTD is a system to help you take all those projects and tasks you have rattling around in your head and organize and start working on them. GTD is a comprehensive, repeatable system that works for anyone.
Set up the home office for maximum productivity
In Atomic Habits, Clear provides a lot of information about how your environment dictates your actions. It’s always best to use each room in your home only for its intended purpose.
You should eat in the dining room, sleep in the bedroom, and relax in the living room, for example. If you can limit actions only to their appropriate rooms, then your mind will automatically want to do the thing in the room it was meant for. When you enter the living room, you want to relax, watch some TV, or play games. But that can work against you too.
If you do office work in the bedroom, you’re more likely to be distracted by thoughts of your latest meeting and the next deadline while you’re trying to fall asleep.
The best solution when it comes to work is to set up a home office and only work from there. Don’t work in the living room, for example. That’s your relaxation place.
Not all of us can afford to set aside a dedicated room for everything, though. At the very least, it’s a good idea to have dedicated furniture for each purpose. For example, if you’re a PC gamer, you may want to invest in separate work and play computers and set them up at different stations.
And even if you can’t set aside a dedicated office in your home, you can at least put up dividers or hang curtains to tell your brain what mode you’re supposed to be in.
Solve problems with the right tools
One of the best ways to deal with the difficulties of working remotely and communicating efficiently is to use the right tools. You need tools that are built around teamwork. And they should be flexible enough that everyone on your team can make them their own.
One of the top tools for that purpose is Jotform. Jotform is, at its core, a form tool. If you think about it, forms are a way to streamline and automate communication.
You can use Slack for real-time communication, email for longer messages, and Jotform for communication that you need to tightly regulate, track, and monitor.
But Jotform is much more than a communication tool. It also lets you store and retrieve data using Jotform Tables, similar to Airtable. It also has the ability to streamline decision-making with Jotform Workflows.
Jotform has too many tools, services, and features to list here, but one more worth mentioning is the ability to create your own no-code apps. Jotform Apps lets anybody create apps to share workflows, data, and more with the whole team.
Working from home becomes a lot easier with tools like Jotform. Give it a try for free today.
Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
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