Working from home is a growing trend worldwide. From the ever-growing market of freelancers to entire enterprising ditching their usual corporate offices in order to build fleets of online bureaus, the market is quickly turning towards home based businesses. But are these businesses for everyone? What are the different activities which you can perform from home in exchange for money? Is this really the way to go? And, surely, is this trend here to stay, or will we be seeing a shift back to normal office policies?
Currently, the focus is clearly shifting to online offices and companies. People are working more and more as freelancers, owning small business, or remotely working for one or more companies. Side jobs and micro jobs have taken a great leap forward with websites likes oDesk, Freelancer and Fiverr. We can surely state that we are in a period in which the traditional 9 to 5 is dying, if not already dead.
But is the new schedule for everyone? We think not.
There are clear advantages to working from home.
Flexibility is the first one that comes to mind. You are more or less free to choose your own schedule and break times, regardless of the work you do. You gain the time losing on the commute, spend a lot less money (think lunch and daily coffees with coworkers) and are generally more productive because of much less distractions which would happen in a normal office environment. These are all advantages that exist regardless of what type of home job you have – freelance, remote or micro-jobs on the side. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
There are disadvantages, too.
Some people still prefer an office environment due to the social factor with colleagues. They need constant interaction with people and also find themselves to be much more productive while working from a social setup. Motivation is sometimes hard to find when working alone from home, while coworkers could easily determine you to step up your game and work more. Also, creativity and brainstorming is a lot easier in a common workplace, because of how easy it is to exchange ideas. Working from home can also be a productive burden in case you are easily distracted, or have constant sources of distractions at home (noisy neighbors, children, pets, etc.).
The conclusion? There is no winning recipe for the ideal schedule. But we can advise one thing. In 2016, side jobs and small freelance tasks will be more present than ever. Especially if you need an extra source of income, or if you want to change careers and earn some extra experience, a small freelance job is exactly what you need. Translations, content writing and marketing, website building and coding, hard-coding algorithms, design work, photography, the possibilities are truly endless! The classic work schedule for 8 hours straight is going out of fashion.
Instead of mourning it, let us embrace new challenges!
