If you’ve never worked from home before, you might be tempted to believe that those who earn money in this way have all the freedom and comfort in the world. That’s far from the truth, however, as you know what they say that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
Remote work has its undeniable benefits, indeed. But guess what? It also has a dark side, one that you should definitely know about if you plan to start working from home. While we’re not here to start the same old “classic work vs. remote work” debate, we need to pinpoint the disadvantages of working from the comfort of your own home:
Procrastination
If you work from home and you have the freedom of establishing your working schedule the way you want, this can turn out to be a bad thing for you, regardless of how much it may look otherwise. That’s because, given that you have all the freedom you want when it comes to this aspect, you will be tempted to delay your work if something else occurs, even if that “something else” isn’t actually urgent. For instance, you might think of looking up the latest news on Facebook instead of starting your work. You will say to yourself, “I’ll start one hour later.” After an hour passes, something else sticks into your mind that you want to do, such as playing another session of Counter-Strike with your buddies. Constantly saying to yourself that you’ll start working an hour later can result in realizing that it’s evening and you didn’t even start your work, let alone finish it. One day without working will obviously result in less money in your account. That’s how severe procrastination can be when it comes to remote work.
Social isolation
You don’t need to be the reincarnation of Einstein to realize that remote work will leave you without a social life. Regardless of how anti-social we may be, we still need social life in our lives. We are social beings by nature. Remote work won’t allow you to have friends or true colleagues, as we have to admit that seeing a text on a display doesn’t really mean that you are socially interacting with a person.
Of course, there are still remote jobs out there that frequently imply video conferences on platforms such as Webex, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more. In this latter case, it means that such a job will grant you some level of social interaction as long as you will also see the people you are talking to on video conference platforms.
Home distractions
Even if you have a remote job where there’s an established schedule, the danger of home distractions is still there. You may have to check your pet, see who’s ringing at the door, check your phone, and many other unexpected situations. Therefore, maintaining focus and productivity can be challenging with such distractions taking place.
Of course, we need to realize in the end that not all people react in the same way to remote work and that remote work itself is of several categories. For instance, there is such a thing as remote work that implies a well-established schedule, meaning that it doesn’t give you the freedom of working by your own schedule. There are remote jobs in which bosses will constantly be nagging you on WhatsApp, Zoom, or Webex about what you have to do at your job.
