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C-P-User-3 wrote: 11 pm hits and
I haven't started working yet.
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I've been working from home for 5 1/2 years straight now - not by choice, but by acquisitions and office closings.
My suggestions?
Set a schedule: Start at the same time every day, break the same time for coffee/lunch, etc. and make a normal routine out of your day. I start about an hour before my main group does for the day, and leave about the same time they do, taking a longer, at home lunch break with dogs and exercise.
Routine, my friend, you need a routine. And goals - if you meet your markers or make your goals, you can know you are performing even if a bit isolated.
And the phone is your friend - if you're alone at home, call and ask the question, not only for human contact, but for instant answers.
Good luck!
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I agree I have been working out of my home office since 2001. I have a set start time and breaks. You have to be dedicated to do this and not let the outside distractions upset your routine of work.
Not only do you save time in commuting but you are saving money in gas and where a tear on your vehicle.
Good luck.
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Member 10169531 wrote: you are saving money in gas and where a tear on your vehicle.
Stupid me, never crossed my mind, but you are so right about that.
That's a pay raise right there.
Duh
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Good stuff.
May I copy that and use it ?
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I've been working from home for one year and I couldn't agree more. Reporting for work in the morning at the home office just like you did/do at the work office (presumably showered, shaved, dressed, and ready to solve whatever problems you have queued up) helps keep you in a routine. Having set break times and knock-off time helps as well, as does having a clear goal of what you want to accomplish.
So basically, everything you said. This is my first post and I'm just paraphrasing someone else's post. 
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I have been working from home on and off since we can do that at my current job. Initially, I was not able to get anything done. Now, I behave as if I am at office while working from home. I have set times for everything. I try not to get involved in chats or any household chores with the wife while it is work hours.
All in all, I think I have got hang of this art.
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As Dexterama and D@nish have said: discipline is the key.
Treat your "home office" as an office: start at the right time, finish at the right time (hah - it's 05:50 and I'm sitting in mine already!) and it can work really well.
Advantages:
1) No commute. This can save you hours per day, and considerable cost and stress.
2) No distractions. The guy in the next cube singing along to his headphones? Gone. The sales dweeb spying round to see what he will be selling in six months? History. Even phone calls are reduced, and emails work instead - but emails aren't as long and rambling as most phone calls.
3) Don't have to interact with the Office Idiot so much, and a lot easier to ignore him / her when you do.
4) Pets / children.
5) If you wake at 05:00 and can't get back to sleep, you can do some work in that "glory time" when nobody will call, email, or otherwise hassle you... 
Disadvantages:
1) It can get lonely. Human interaction helps, sometimes.
2) Difficult to "bounce" things off peers.
3) Pets / children.
I prefer it, but you do have to be focussed. If you are the type to get distracted easily, it's a bad idea.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
modified 15-Jun-15 1:33am.
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OriginalGriff wrote: ...to interact with the Office Idiot...
Now all you have to figure out is how to stop interacting with us CP idiots
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 Smirk
Agreed.
Really, this thread is helping me way more than it is distracting me
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Hah! I am one of the CP idiots!
Oh, bugger... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff has it bang-on for the advantages/disadvantages.
And as others have said, routine and discipline are key. I will add that having a clear divide between work and home is also important. Previously your walk/bike/drive to work provided that separation, but when only a few steps separates your work and home then you need to establish other barriers. The family should be able to respect the fact that you're working if you can also respect the fact that this is their home.
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OriginalGriff wrote: 1) No commute. This can save you hours per day, and considerable cost and stress.
...not to mention you can factor mileage/wear and tear on your car into that cost. I drive a 2006 Dodge Charger, and it's still under 74,000 kilometers, but that's only because I was still commuting for the first two years I've owned the car. I've been working from home 4 days a week since.
And while a Charger isn't what you'd buy to save gas, a gas tank lasts me a month.
OriginalGriff wrote: Even phone calls are reduced
Everybody I know (outside of work) has been told that if they wouldn't call me at the office during work hours, then they shouldn't call me at home either during said work hours, just because I happen to be at home.
Things are a lot quieter around here than in any office environment I've ever worked in.
OriginalGriff wrote: 2) Difficult to "bounce" things off peers.
That's what Skype is for. All of my coworkers are on my Skype list.
Everybody's mentioned that you have to be disciplined and have to establish a routine--I'm already a creature of habit, so this has never been a problem for me.
One additional point--when I'm in the zone, I don't have to stop just because it's getting late or I need to beat rush hour traffic. Every week my employer gets a few more hours out of me that he wouldn't be getting otherwise.
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I agree wholeheartedly with OriginalGriff, right down to the fact that there are more advantages than disadvantages.
I've been working from home since 2007. I have an office with a door I can close, and that has more to do with psychological posturing than privacy:
if (door_closed)
do_work();
I do get lonely at times; I miss the water cooler banter. But most of all I miss being able to brainstorm ideas at a whiteboard. Not being able to do that limits me to relying solely on my own inspiration. I admit that two heads are better than one at times.
My step-daughter's Guinea Pig often has good ideas. But sadly, they all involve celery. 
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
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...oh yeah...
One advantage I forgot to mention.
When I transition from writing to debugging, I get the fire up Led Zeppelin and Godsmack as loud as I like.
"What is and what should never be" works on a couple of levels!!
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
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Bah, humbug !
Either Beethoven's nine symphonies, his five piano concertos, or the six Bach Brandenburg concertos.
Those are the sequences of music to debug by.
 
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I agree with most things that have been advised apart from routine. I don't actually have a strong routine, but I do have an ethic to get things done (ie getting paid). Flexibility of working from home (and admittedly for myself) works for me. Sometimes, I'm up at 6 and straight to the desk. Other times I might run some errands first or just cut myself some slack and start later, because I can. But ultimately this flexibility still needs to work within the framework of a work plan. I have estimates and time goals for milestones in the job and I'm good and not letting myself slip behind them because of this flexibility. In other words it must be done today but there are 24 hours in a day and I can choose which ones I work.
My 2c
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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Seconded/Thirded/etc (SimonRigby, OriginalGriff, and others).
One thing that people don't warn you about, though, is that you are ALWAYS AT WORK! If you are the disciplined type who keeps a solid schedule (and makes sure that your clients follow it), then you just set working hours and follow them.
OTOH, I'm the kind who gets into a problem and does a lot of mental design and review (typically) before I start coding. So if I come across a particularly "interesting" (meaning "new", "nasty", "complex", or "WTF"), then I will keep hacking at it until there is at least a starting point.
This leaks over to my customers--being a bit of a pleaser, I cracked open the door to after-hours sessions (install, troubleshooting, etc). This ended up with multiple nights where I was on the phone at 2 AM trying to puzzle out something. I was getting paid (hooray!), but in the end the guy was taking advantage, because he knew I was always "at work".
Not really good or bad, but you have to figure out what kind of person you are, what kind of person your client is, and then figure out the approach that keeps you sane and keeps your customers happy.
vuolsi così colà dove si puote
ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare
--The answer to Minos and any question of "Why are we doing it this way?"
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David Days wrote: ...people don't warn ... that you are ALWAYS AT WORK!
That is my new problem, honestly.
Bonus points for identifying one of the major pillars of health destruction.
David Days wrote: This leaks over to my customers--being a bit of a pleaser, I cracked open the door to after-hours sessions ... ended up ... on the phone at 2 AM ... the guy was taking advantage, because he knew I was always "at work".
I just requested two days off; Saturday and Sunday; and they honored the request.
Good sign, in my eyes, and it makes me want to give them even more.
Still; you guys are right. I absolutely positively gotta stop after 8 hours. Okay, 9. That's realistic.
(Although, some guy on a website calling himself something like, "the financial samurai" says that the number, 40 hours, is an anti-success plot to poison the minds of Western-culture folks)
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I used to do it a day or two a week when I really needed to concentrate and not get distracted, or when there were accidents on the motorway making it not worth the drive. I used to get more done, for a starter my internet was much faster than the office internet at connecting to the central data centre, but I found myself craving face to face human interaction rather than phone conferences.
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As others have said, you need a space that's free from unnecessary distractions and to work out a routine that works for you.
I've been working away from a traditional office for 6 years now, and quite frankly I'm dreading the day when I have to start commuting again (I'm sure that will happen one day...).
I typically work four days a week from my home office, and one from our office in town. The freedom is great, but you do need to be disciplined and self-motivated.
Anna ( @annajayne)
Tech Blog | Visual Lint
"Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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I work from home occasionally. I find the following things key to making this successful:
Have a work space separate from the traffic areas in the house, preferably a separate room with a door you can close. Don't use the work space for non-work activities if you can avoid it.
On your computer, segregate the work stuff from the home/personal stuff in whatever way makes sense to you. Put work in a separate folder structure, partition, or even its own drive.
When Daddy's working, Daddy's working. If the house or your little sister isn't on fire, it can wait until you come out for coffee or a pee break. If you ever go in to work on the weekends, take your kid(s) with you if you can. I think doing this made it easier to work at home when my daughter was little.
Be scrupulously honest with yourself and your boss about how much and when you work. If telecommuting is an option with your employer, that's the only way to keep the privilege.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: Don't use the work space for non-work activities if you can avoid it.
I have already emptied out the room which will be the office.
I created a floorplan for it. (Cool freeware: Sweet Home 3D[^]
Any tax attorneys reading ? Can I now take the dimensions of that room; divide it, and subtract that portion of my rent from my taxes ?
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C-P-User-3 wrote: Can I now take the dimensions of that room; divide it, and subtract that portion of my rent from my taxes
You really have to work at it to claim a home office as a deduction. I've done after-hours consulting for a long time, and could never get away with claiming my home office since it was part of the traffic pattern in the house, and the room had other uses. You generally can't claim any kind of space at home if you are telecommuting to your normal job.
Your comment about a tax attorney is more of a good idea and less of a joke than you might think.
Software Zen: delete this;
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