Good morning, dear people!
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few weeks as working from home has been a very positive experience that I’d like to share on the blog.
My husband and I have been very fortunate in being able to work from home during quarantine, having jobs that can be done remotely, which we’re very grateful for.
Eventually, I’d like to write a post on how we organize our space and schedules while both working from home, including pictures, since our house is not that. My husband works a more regular 9 to 6 yet flexible schedule while I need to be available 24/7, often working weekends and nights.
As for our work spaces, my husband’s desk is in our living room, while I work from our small office which doubles or triples as a closet/linen closet/storage room/ place where you store whatever doesn’t fit anywhere else. This arrangement has been working for us so far. I can sometimes hear him talking on the phone or having a meeting and I’m sure he does too but we have yet to ask each other to keep it down, so I guess it’s fine. He’s been WFH for about 2 months, I think and I’ve been doing it for close to a month and a half now and I absolutely think it’s the best possible way to work. I’ve come up list of ten reasons why I’m sold on working from home.
1. Comfort
Experts recommend that you get dressed and put your shoes on as if you were going to the office because that will increase your productivity. Well, such advice is simply not true for me. If I’m at home, I’ll either be wearing a sports bra or no bra at all. I’ll either be wearing pj’s or leggings and an old shirt/sweater. And I’ll be very productive just the same. One of my favorite things about being home is not having to put on “outside” clothes. What about you? Do you ever get fully dressed if you’re staying home?
2. No commute
We commute for about 2 hours every day by car, maybe longer if the traffic is really bad. That one hour it takes to go from work to home at the end of the day can be the longest after an already stressful day. When working from home, you finish work and you’re home the very same minute. No commuting, no traffic, no waiting for the bus.
3. No carrying your stuff around
My friends and coworkers bully me endlessly because my bag is always extremely heavy. But then I’m the one laughing when someone needs a tampon, tissue, pen, some gum, medicine, hand cream… I could go on. However, my very well stocked purse needs to be organized and cleaned almost daily, as well as carried around. By staying home, there’s no need for my evening bag cleanup as I don’t have to carry a bag every day.
4. No makeup, no dressing up
I know makeup is optional and that I don’t necessarily have to wear it daily, but I like to. It makes me feel put together and I feel naked going to work without at least a bit of mascara, even if it does happen sometimes. I do skip makeup on my days off unless I’m going out to dinner or something. While I’ve been working from home, I don’t have to worry about it at all, unless I’m having a zoom meeting and don’t want to frighten my coworkers. My skin has been loving the freedom too. As for getting dressed, I’ve been enjoying not having to plan any outfits or think about ironing. Not that I’ve ever done much ironing in the first place but you get it. Even the laundry is easier to do and put away these days.
5. Eat at home
So I’ve never had to stress about making our lunch boxes because that is my husband’s task, which he amazingly does for us every single workday, unless we plan on eating out, which we do a few times a week. But I’m very much okay with not having to deal with the logistics of eating at work.
- Get to work, store food in the fridge everyone else uses, leave lunch box somewhere in the office kitchen.
- Lunch time: Get to the kitchen, get food from the fridge, retrieve lunch box with cutlery, place food in the microwave, hope it will be hot enough the first time, find a table, get food from the microwave, usually not hot enough but you can’t bother, eat food, decide if wash Tupperware container with the communal sponge, decide it’s gross, take it home for the dishwasher, decide against eating orange because hands will smell like oranges for the rest of the day, feel defeated, go brush teeth, go back to work.
At home, I just go to the kitchen and eat like I do for every other meal and still have time to throw in a load of laundry, read a chapter or two of a book and chill with my coffee before I have to go back to work.
6. More free time
This one is quite obvious. If you exclude a 2 hour commute from our work day, we get 2 free hours to enjoy. If I don’t have to spend 45 minutes getting things ready for the next day, wake up 1 hour before I have to leave the house, it all adds up.
Example: If I were to be at work at 8 am, I’d have to wake up at 6 am and leave the house by 7 am the latest. I’d then be at work until 5 p.m. There’s always rush hour traffic, so we’d get home at about 6.30, maybe 7 if my husband got caught up at work and I had to wait for him. I absolutely have to have my 8 hours of sleep or I’m useless, and some quiet time before, so I aim to be in bed by 8.30/9 p.m, if I’m to wake up at 6, which would leave me with 1 hour and a half to get things ready for the next day and go through my night routine.
Currently, if I’m working, let’s say 6 am to 3 pm, I wake up at 5.30, wash my face and brush my teeth (I’ll shower at some point during the day/evening), get dressed get breakfast and my coffee while starting everything in the office. By 6 am I’m more than settled and ready to work. And then I’m free by 3 pm, and have 5 and a half hours of free time before bedtime which makes a huge difference in my routine.
8. More focused and productive
I know some people complain that they’re unable to focus and get easily distracted at home, or that they’re prone to procrastination if they’re not at the office but that’s not my case at all. Home is quiet and I can focus on nothing else but what I’m working on. There’s not much happening around me and no one talking or coming to say hi. I’m also very chatty by nature so I feel like I’m not distracting myself and my coworkers either. Win-win.
9. Organized home
Working full time we didn’t use to have the time to clean much or at all during the week. We tried our best on our days off but sometimes we were either exhausted or trying to have some social life, so maintaining a pristine house was never top of our list of priorities. Let me tell you, the house is much cleaner now, the laundry is very quickly done and put away and there’s way less clutter around obviously because we have time and are actually living here 24/7 and need to keep a more organized space. I can easily finish work and go and dust our bedroom or clean our bathroom while I’d never be able to do that after a long day at the office.
10. Less stress
This has to be the most expected and wonderful perk of working from home. I feel less anxious and irritable in general as there seems to be less pressure because life happens at a much slower pace.
What about you? Have you had the chance to work from home?
How do you feel about it?
I’d love to read your comments.
Love, C.
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