AskFreelancers: Work from home or office?

In a couple of weeks I will be (hopefully) moving into my first proper office and as such for this weeks AskFreelancers, I wanted to ask freelancers where they work from and the advantages and disadvantages of working there. In this post we will see some freelancers responses to this question.

If you want to take part in AskFreelancers on Help Developer then you can, I put a question up every Sunday on the FreelanceSwitch forums so get yourself over and sign up if you want to participate, you get a link to your site/blog/portfolio if your response gets published. If you have a question you would like answered please leave it as a comment below.

So this week, I asked the question; “Where do you work and what are the advantages and disadvantages?”

Cmd+Shift Design said:

I work at my desk in my apartment.
Advantages: Good sunlight, Kitten helps with stress management and Comfortable
Disadvantages: Sometimes I go all day without leaving the house.

Hollis Bartlett said:

I have a workspace set up on the main floor of my house. Sometimes if I’m blogging or stuff like that I’ll take my laptop to the recliner in the sunporch.
Advantages: Getting to work is easy, Costs nothing, Don’t need babysitters
Disadvantages: I’m always ‘at work’, Distractions, hardly ever leave the house

Nicole said:

I have an office under my house.

Advantages:
Private, lot’s of light and windows
Feels like I’m leaving work once I’m finished for the day
It’s my space with my music and decorated in my style

Disadvantages:
Have to go outside to get to it. Crap if it’s cold
Also hardly leave the house
Crap if I need to get something and I’m warm by the fire upstairs

mydaycreative said:

I have an office in my 2 bedroom house.

Advantage: I crawl out of bed and literally walk 10 ft to work
Disadvantage: I go to bed and try to sleep when my work is 10 ft away from me.

I love being able to stay at home especially during my Minnesota winters. But I hate having the distractions, and also never being able to leave my work. This winter we’ll be finishing our basement and moving my office to a much larger and more secluded room downstairs.

tearsofjoy said:

I have a very comfortable office in my home. My library, art gallery, music — everything that I could possibly want/need are in this room. I can adjust the lighting for mellow mood, or strictly work mode… or, mellow work mode. My mannequin BFFs and the dogs are with me always, although the dogs are one of the main disadvantages. Especially psycho dog, little yapper (see image). Which is why when I need to meet with clients, it must be at my Starbucks office.

Advantages: All the comforts of home, but at the other end of the main hub. Right next to the bathroom. Ditto about having to go out in the (Wisconsin) winter weather.
Disadvantages: Barking dogs, esp. when on telephone with clients. Easy to stay in here most of day and night. Easy to fall asleep in here… day or night.

But I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.

dinsky said:

I have a room set up in the house for my office.

Advantages:
The 3 second commute
No driving in the winter unless I absolutely have to (a BIG advantage in Ontario)
Three kitties for stress management
BF works from home as well, so we can schedule our breaks together
Affordable - I don’t make nearly enough money to rent out office space yet

Disadvantages:
Promotes my terrible habit of sleeping past noon (could also be seen as an advantage)
Hard to know when to STOP working - I find myself getting sucked into my office while I’m supposed to be taking a break
Working and relaxing in the same place can get dull.

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It is obvious from all the above that the most common place for freelancers to work is from an office in their home with some of the biggest advantages being;

“Hard to know when to STOP working - I find myself getting sucked into my office while I’m supposed to be taking a break”

No commute which means that you save money, however this comes with the disadvantage that it’s hard to separate your home life from your work life and in some cases it means sleeping in an not getting a productive day.

Pets, great for keeping your stress levels down and lets face it unless you work for Google you aren’t going to allowed to bring your cats/dogs into work.

It’s affordable to work from home, for example, my new office is going to cost me over £400 a month so its a big expense to have if you have a perfectly good room at home to work from.

If you think that having your own home office is great then spare a thought for MikeM who is currently having to work from a dinner tray, “I used to have a spare room set up as an office, however I’m in the process of a house move which has been delayed, so right now my wife and I are holed up with her parents, and my office is now a dinner tray :(”

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It seems to be uncommon to find freelancers in their own rented offices, the closest I got is from Chris Walley:

I do have a friend who works for himself and rents an office as he has kids at home and just cannot work with them around. The social side of being in an office is good because the shared utilities bring some form of socializing with other tenants, plus you get good exposure to potential clients in the form of the other business tenants and their clients who see you there.

With things like VPN systems I’ve personally managed to work remotely from my previous office fine too, yes you do get the odd bit of paperwork left back in the office but I found problems like that rare.

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Callide Media had a different take on a good place to work:

I love working at coffee shops

Advantages:
I have nothing to distract me, so I can get a lot done, I live with 3 brothers in an apartment so it gets hectic sometimes
Sometimes I will meet other people doing similar things as me, and thats always fun
Good drinks, and the atmosphere is great…I don’t like staying home all day

Disadvantages:
They close at some time
Coffee costs money…(but it’s cheaper then renting office space)

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And finally, if you want the perfect place to work then I think I’ve found somebody who has it, Australian Eivind Bårdsen works from his patio with a view into the Australian forest:

I work on the little wooden patio just outside my little apartment. It has a custom made coffee shop table with two chairs and a view on the forest.

Advantages:
The view: Australian forest, including parrots and sometimes kangaroos.
It’s roofed, so the sun is not too glaring—also it protects from the rain.
It’s outside, so the air is fresh and the sound of the forest is relaxing

Disadvantages:
In the late afternoon the sun is really glaring and I have to go inside.
Sometimes I have to run inside to get my camera because I see a kangaroo or rare bird in a good spot for a photo.
I don’t meet many people in the backyard.

All in all it’s a great spot for working during the day. I’m loving it!

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