Our Pros & Cons of Working From Home

Now that we’re three months into working from home together, let’s go over a few things…

To be clear, PJ has worked from home for the past six years (and has since vowed he will never go back to having a job with any type of schedule-go figure!), but Thomas left his 9-5 job in Feb of this year, and it’s been… an adjustment. You can read all about that experience here.

For the last few months, we’ve been finding our rhythm; our footing, if you will, and it’s been such a new and exciting chapter in our relationship. And by new and exciting, we don’t mean it’s wonderful and happy 24/7 or that everything works out, because that’s absurd. We mean there have been challenges, arguments, disagreements, triumphs, failures, and we’ve experienced pretty much everything you would expect a married couple to go through the first few months of working from home together.

But above all else, we’ve come to find there are definitely some clear pros and cons to working from home, and today we’re discussing the biggest ones for us:

Pros:

You can sleep in as long as you want, and wear whatever you want. This one is kind of a no-brainer, but still worth mentioning. Thomas is the early bird and PJ likes to sleep in a little longer, but when it comes to what we wear, we’re on the same page. We pretty much live in gym clothes or anything comfy. T-shirt, gym shorts, and that’s it. It’s all about comfort at the McKay house!

You make your own schedule. One of the best parts of being your own boss is doing your work on your own terms. It’s such a freeing, empowering feeling and it never gets old, at least not yet. Somehow, when what you do with your day is entirely up to you, you seem to get more accomplished but there seems to be less hours in the day to get things done. How does that happen?

Speaking of schedule, you can make time for other things. Like taking your fur baby to the vet, working out, going to the car wash, taking a break to stretch or walk around, take the longest lunch imaginable, or suddenly drop everything and go visit your mom. If you’re not good with time management, this one can be tricky, but overall it’s been a blessing.

Save time & money. Thomas was making a 45 minute commute to work each day, one way, which means we were spending hundreds of dollars in gas a month. Since working from home, we’ve been able to save so much more money each month and, since he’s not spending almost two hours a day in a car, he can now devote that time to working more on our business.

Cons:

Time management. We touched on this above, but if you’re not the best at it, it’s hard to get almost anything completely finished during the day. You have to plan ahead, set clear goals for yourself (it always helps to write them down!), and do your best to accomplish what you want to for the day. It’s a work in progress, and every day won’t be perfect, but it’s all part of it!

Not as much human interaction. With just the two of us working together all day, we miss out on that face to face, office camaraderie that comes with working for a company. Do we miss it? Sometimes, but we would be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy each other’s company more.

A lot more distractions. This is a big one for us. You may never meet two people who are more ADD than us. The smallest thing can distract us so much that we might never return to what we were working on (we wish we were joking), but that’s why it’s good there are two of us. When one of us gets distracted, the other one is always there to reel them back in.

Not as much pressure on you. This is a weird one. On one hand, there may be a ton of pressure for you to work and accomplish what you need to do, because you’re depending on that paycheck each week, so you want to make sure you do your work and get it done. On the other hand, some people need the pressure of a boss or colleague to challenge and demand things from them. It could go either way, but it mostly depends on the person.

Do you work from home, too? Do you have any pros and/or cons you would add to this list?