Six of One Tyler Ennis Wild Jersey , Half a Dozen of the Other Home Business Articles | November 28, 2001 You've read many articles I'm sure about the ... and ... of working for yourself from your own home. Many of them I've written myself, in fact. But how many articles have you read tha
You've read many articles I'm sure about the advantages and disadvantages of working for yourself from your own home. Many of them I've written myself, in fact. But how many articles have you read that give equal time to the advantages of working for someone else compared to working for yourself?
This article seeks to redress the imbalance by comparing and contrasting the respective pros and cons of running your own home-based business and working for someone else.
COMMUTING
When you work for yourself from home, your commute is, at most, a few steps from one end of the house to the other. When you work in a traditional paid "job" your commute may be a five minute drive or it may be an hour and a half or worse. Both ways. That can add up to a substantial chunk of time over the course of a week Jared Spurgeon Wild Jersey , a month or a year.
CHILDREN
If you work from home, you can be around for your kids. If you work outside the home, you may be spending a fortune on childcare if your kids are too young for school and worrying about what they're up to between the end of the school day and when you get home if they're not.
On the other hand, having kids around while trying to run a professional business from home can be a major distraction and constant source of interruption. You may find you need to use childminding services occasionally to take care of business undisturbed.
INDEPENDENCE AND AUTONOMY
When you work for yourself, you call the shots, you make the decisions and you do it without anyone looking over your shoulder and breathing down your neck. When you work outside the home, you are subject to the decisions (good and bad) Devan Dubnyk Wild Jersey , whims and control of your boss. Your boss dictates your regimen.
On the other hand, along with decision-making autonomy comes an awful burden. If you get it wrong, you may not make any money this week.
WORKING HOURS
When you work for yourself, you can set your own hours - both the actual hours you work and the number. When you work for a boss, you work when and for how long you're told (within limits, obviously).
Although setting your own hours may sound like freedom to you, all too often working your own hours translates into working all hours so you need to be able to set limits for yourself.
Also Kyle Quincey Wild Jersey , when your boss dictates your hours, that may or may not fit in with your body clock. One of the real advantages of working for yourself is that you can choose to work during your peak concentration time and not at all during your sluggish times of the day. If your peak time is 5:00 am through to 10:00 am, you can work those hours and another couple sometime in the afternoon catching up on brainless type tasks. If you work for someone else, you work when you're told and if that doesn't work with your body clock, too bad.
STATUS
If you're a professional in the paid workforce, you may enjoy a certain status and prestige, if that's important to you. On the other hand Daniel Winnik Wild Jersey , working for yourself you may find it difficult to be taken seriously at all. Again, whether that's a relevant factor depends on how important things like "status", "image" etc. are to you. If they are important, take this seriously. Although it may sound shallow, if it's going to be a thorn in your side, give it some serious thought.
BOUNDARIES
When you work for someone else, you have a ready-made structure. There is a time for work Matt Dumba Wild Jersey , and there is a time to go home. When you work for yourself, these boundaries can become blurred over time, so much so that you may find you have difficulty turning work off since you are, after all, living in your work environment and vice versa.
PERSONAL DISCIPLINE
If you're a personally disciplined person, working from home will probably suit you very well. But if you find it difficult to motivate yourself to do what has to be done and you find yourself procrastinating over starting a particular work- related task, you may find the distractions of being at home particularly difficult to resist. If you find yourself doing laundry and gardening when you should be working Ryan Suter Wild Jersey , this may be a problem for you.
CASH FLOW
This is one of the biggies. THE big advantage of working for someone else is that you have a regular paycheck coming in. Leaving aside any worry of downsizing, assuming you do your job competently, you can reasonably expect to receive a certain, known amount of money at regular intervals. When you work for yourself, however, the amount of money you make and when you receive it can be, at best Luke Kunin Wild Jersey , spasmodic.
On the other hand, the money you make from working from someone else is limited to your salary. When you work for yourself, the sky's the limit provided you are successful at what you do.