If you have toyed with the idea of working at home and you have been reading up a bit on the subject, then you will have no doubt read a great deal of material that goes on about the benefits of freelancing.
Being location independent and choosing your own hours to work might sound great, but working from home is not for everyone. Here are five reasons why it may not be for you.
1 – You Need to Discipline Yourself
Some people have little or no ability to discipline themselves and to get work done. Working from home, there are too many temptations and distractions and, unless you can discipline yourself to ignore these and establish a solid working routine, you are never likely to become successful. If you think that you fall into that category, freelancing is not for you.
2 – It Is Unreliable
Freelancing is often notoriously unreliable. One month you may earn next to nothing while the next month might be highly successful. Freelancing might be full of promises of long-term opportunities, but the vast majority of these never come to fruition. Freelancing is all ups and downs and few if any guarantees. If you need stability and reliability, then working at home full-time is not for you.
3 – No Paid Holiday
One of the worst things about freelancing is, that when you take a day off work, you are effectively losing all of the money that you could have earned that day.
By contrast, with a regular day job, you usually get a certain amount of paid holiday per year. With freelancing, you might be able to choose exactly when to go on holiday, but it can cost you a lot more.
4 – You Need to Motivate Yourself
Disciplining yourself to do the things that you need to do is one thing, but motivation refers to actually wanting to do the things that you need to do. If you have no inspiration, you are not likely to get a good job done in a timely fashion.
Even the most experienced of freelancers feel drained of motivation from time to time. Anyone who works at home needs to be able to find new and creative ways to motivate themselves during such times.
5 – Lack of Social Environment
Unless you have a highly active social life entirely outside of work, working at home can get very lonely. There is no meaningful interaction with other people and you will likely never have any kind of work-related social life.
Most people are sociable creatures and, unless your lifestyle is already very active and sociable, you may find working at home to be thoroughly depressing.
Just like any other line of work, freelancing can work out great for some but not for others.
Freelancing can mean a life of solitude and financial instability for some people while for others it can mean a life of freedom and being in full control of one’s own future.
If you are thinking about working from home, be sure to consider both the advantages and disadvantages first. Don’t be afraid to experiment either – there is much less risk involved if you do a little part-time freelancing in addition to your regular job.