Almost every single time when I say that I am working from home, people get shocked about it!
For some reason, people still think that working from home — or remotely — is not a “real” job. You know, if you are not working in an office, you are not actually working.
At the same time, big corporations such as Apple, Amazon or Netflix have a full “remote work” program that their employees can take advantage of.
But, why is working from home still not considered a “real job”?
In my brutally honest opinion, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Alright, that’s not mine, it’s from Steve Jobs, but you get the point.
7 reasons why you should be working from home
People are so used to the “traditional way” of doing things that they ignore any other possibility.
This is why I am going to share with you 7 reasons why you should be working from home.
1. You’ll gain 200+ extra hours every year
2. No more useless meetings
3. You will boost your productivity —working fewer hours
4. You’ll be paid for your results, not for your process
5. Save a ton of money every month
6. Get an instant pay rise on free-time
7. Create your own schedule every day
Let’s go for it.
1. You’ll gain 200+ extra hours every year
Yep!
This is the first immediate benefit of working from home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a typical commute to work, 5 days a week, consumes 4.35 hours of your valuable time every single week.
That’s more than 200 hours a year!
Can you imagine what you could do with an extra 200 hours every year if you were working remotely?
How would you invest that time? I’ll give you a few ideas:
- Learning how to code
- Start an online business on the side
- Going to the gym
- Spending extra time with your family
- Go fishing
- Playing golf
- Reading
- Watching Netflix
It’s your time and you should be doing amazing things that make you happy.
By the way, in case you haven’t thought about it yet, those 200 hours are YOUR time, your boss is not paying you for the commute!
I hope I’ve convinced you already. But if not, let’s move on.
2. No more useless meetings
Have you ever stopped doing something to join a meeting and then leave the meeting an hour later with NOT a single useful outcome?
Of course, you did, like me and everybody else.
For some weird reason, meetings are overused. Maybe it is the fact that some people are always looking forward to avoiding proper work and they set up meetings all the time.
I am sure you have someone in mind.
Anyway, according to Harvard Business Review, executives expend an average of 23 hours a week in meetings.
Let’s suppose that you work 40 hours a week, that means that 57% of your working time you attend meetings!
That’s way too much!
Whether as an employee, freelancer or entrepreneur you can enjoy a laptop lifestyle and work literally from anywhere.
I work online for more than 8 years now I can tell you something, I am still alive and well! You don’t need a meeting to discuss every single thing.
I use Skype or Zoom to talk with my team, clients and connections and I love it.
I can schedule one online meeting with New York and 5 min later another with Berlin. I am based in the United Kingdom and do not even need to leave my chair.
3. You will boost your productivity — working fewer hours
At this point, I guess I don’t need to convince you about the fact that you will work fewer hours if you start working from home.
But what if I tell you that you will be more productive?
Yes, that’s true.
Let me explain this better. It happens that not everybody has their “productive peak” hours at the same time.
Me for example, between 9 am and 12 am I’m a kind of a productivity monster. That’s the moment where:
- I am more productive
- I generate more creative ideas
I promise, I generate my best work between those hours.
So here is the question: Why do I need to follow an office schedule that doesn’t match my natural productive time?
When you work from home you have the flexibility to schedule your workday according to the hours you are the most productive.
Imagine that you work much better at night when everybody else is sleeping in the house and you enjoy that peaceful environment.
If you are working on a client proposal and you need to write a long-form document that requires your full mental resources, you should be able to do that at night, right?
After all, you should be paid for results, not for time spent in the office.
What’s your most productive time of the day? I am curious, let me know in the comments.
Another great point, which leads me to the next reason.
4. You’ll be paid for your results, not for your process
Years ago, when I used to work on a big corporation, it was huge indeed. And there is a fascinating behaviour that I noticed.
Some people used to stay until late every day. You knew they were in their cubicle by the reflection of their desk light coming from inside.
Here is the funny story, those people left the office exactly 5 minutes after our boss.
Yep!
I am going to be very clear here, you have two options:
- You can be paid for your time.
- You can be paid for your results.
That said, you have — like everybody else — 24 hours a day.
On the other hand, you have the capacity to deliver unlimited results.
Your choice. No further questions, your honor!
5. Save a ton of money every month
We all accept the average work-day, I mean, we take for granted things like buying lunch, grabbing a coffee from Starbucks on the way to the office, buying a new suit or a new dress because you have an important meeting.
But think about it, very often those are the expenses that are not reimbursed by your employer.
Have you ever done the math for all those “extra expenses” a year?
We rarely take the time to seriously calculate how much money we invest in ourselves to “fit” into our job position.
Of course, I am not trying to tell you that if you work from home you should become a solitary guy that never sees the sunlight again.
6. Get an instant pay rise on free-time
Would you rather work 12 hours every day for $6,000 a month OR 5 hours a day for $3,000 a month?
Can you see where am I going with this?
The reason is that free time matters, having the flexibility to do what you really want to do is very important.
As Tim Ferriss said in his legendary book, “The 4-hour workweek”, there is a new kind of rich people: those who are rich on TIME.
Quality time to do what you really want to do. This is more important than making twice the money and having no time to enjoy it.
Of course, you can say, “Ok, I can save a ton of money so when I retire, I will enjoy life”.
Just a couple of things about that:
- There is no longer something like a job for life, good luck with your retirement plans.
- Do you really want to spend the best years of your life working in a cubicle with the hope of getting retired one day?
Please, this is a serious recommendation from someone who works remotely for more than 8 years: just do it, is not that hard and you’ll never go back.
7. Create your own schedule every day
My next reason is that you can create your own schedule every single day. Or as I like to call it: becoming a master of flexibility.
I am always reading about entrepreneurship, all the time actually, and I am always surprised at how other online entrepreneurs set up a super strict routine.
I mean, you can make it easy – just set your own schedule!
Waking up at 5 am every day to jump from the bed and do 30 minutes of sit-ups and 20 minutes of journaling is not my ideal morning routine. Yet if you listen to many productivity guru’s online, that’s the type of routine that supposedly would set you apart.
At 5 am I don’t even remember my own name, how I am supposed to journaling?!
What I mean by flexibility here is the power of placing different activities across the day as I want.
For example, I go to the gym at 10:45 am. Why? First, because I can. Secondly, because that’s the quietest moment, at least at my gym.
Another example, I can go to lunch where I want. If I am working, my wife calls me because she is free to have some lunch with me, no problem, I take a look at my calendar and – it’s done.
Here are some other great examples:
- Stop working 30 min to do some yoga.
- Watch some TV during lunch
- Take a short walk after lunch.
- Listen to your favourite podcast on the background while working.
- Having a coffee with a friend in the middle of the morning.
- Take a short holiday to visit your family and keep working from your laptop.
Whatever you want to do with your days, you can do it. If you have the opportunity to work remotely, you can organize your days as you want and keep on top of your productivity.
Just do me a favour, don’t wake up at 5 am to journaling, please.
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