 There are lots of great reasons to work from home, and even if you find just a few on the list I'm about to give you, that could be the motivation you need to start working from home or even consider a career change. Welcome to the pantry. Perhaps you've seen some colleagues start to work from home even a few days a week, or maybe it's something you've been thinking about for a while, but just aren't sure if it's the best fit for you. We're going to go through some of the questions you should ask yourself as you consider working from home and of course a whole laundry list of benefits that would come with working from home. These benefits, not all of them will apply to you, but I bet you if you find two or three that could be just the push that you need to make that leap and start working from home. If you're considering working from home, here are a few questions I encourage you to ask yourself to see if this is even a good fit for you and your personality. Number one, are you self-motivated? When you work from home, there is no boss leaning over your shoulder or colleagues knocking on your door wondering if your part of the project has been completed. You could essentially be on your own the entire day. So you need to be a self-starter and a self-motivator to get your work done. If you're not, perhaps working from home isn't the best fit because every day is going to seem like a chore and a challenge to be productive. Question number two, are you an extrovert? Now it doesn't mean extroverts cannot work from home. There are tons of extroverts that do. In fact, one of my closest colleagues is an extreme extrovert and she thrives into working from home environment. But it wasn't easy for her in the beginning. She missed the buzz of having colleagues around. And I did do a blog post and video on networking places that you can go when you work from home and I encourage you to check that out. But do ask yourself if the buzz of having colleagues around you all day, every day is what gets you going and gets you productive. Because again, working from home, you might miss that buzz and you have to fill it in with other activities. Question number three, can you manage distractions? So the work setting, traditional work setting has a number of different distractions, usually in the form of bosses, colleagues, the downstairs coffee shop. You still have those at home. They just look different. So for example, when you're at home, especially if you have kids, you have kids running around the house. You have the lure of the refrigerator, even the lure of the TV or household chores. So if those are things that are going to sidetrack you from getting your work done, maybe going to a traditional office setting is a better fit for you because you don't have to deal with those at home distractions. Question number four, will working from home prevent you from climbing the corporate ladder? Some corporations see FaceTime in the office as a precursor to corporate growth. So ask yourself if that is the case in your job and potentially if you're able to risk that by working from home. You may still choose yes and start working from home. But if this is important to you, if climbing the corporate ladder is really important to you and having FaceTime with your bosses and colleagues every single day is part of that climb, then maybe working from home isn't the best option for you. Now we're going to chat about some of the amazing benefits working from home. Now I've actualized a majority of the benefits on this list, which would make me going back to a traditional work setting very difficult for me. I don't know if it would be impossible, I'm always up for a challenge. But certainly I've enjoyed a work from home lifestyle and it's because some of these benefits that I'm about to share. Benefit number one, the flexibility of your schedule. Now there's also a downside to this and you can become a workaholic and work 24-7. But you have the flexibility now to manage your work throughout the entire day, not just a nine to five timeframe. So myself, for example, I can be caught working as early as seven in the morning and as late as 10 at night. Now in between there, I also do a number of other activities, which I'm going to list as other benefits. But it does give me flexibility to manage a schedule in a way that I see fit and is a good fit for my personality versus being tied into a rigid nine to five Monday to Friday schedule. Benefit number two, self-discipline. So going back to one of the questions you should have asked yourself about being self-motivated, if you are kind of on the fence and waffling about if you are truly a self-starter, working from home actually grows that skill in you. So perhaps this is a great opportunity to become more of a self-starter or more of a self-motivated individual because now you have to be. So it does challenge you to push yourself out of the comfort zone in that way. Benefit number three, better control of your distractions. Now going back to that question you should have asked yourself about being able to control distractions, working from home does allow you to control them in a different way. I found one of the biggest distractions when working in a traditional office setting was the open door policy. Now, when the open door policy came into vogue a few decades ago, it was so that we could share best practices with one another, create community, create transparency in the workplace. However, with an open door policy, all of those distractions followed very quickly. When you're at home, you could still have an open door policy, but not as many people are going to be walking through that door. And so you're able to just be a bit more productive. Benefit number four, reducing your commute time. I don't know what your commute is currently, whether it's 10 minutes to the office or for some people, 90 minutes to two hours each way to get to their office. My commute is down the stairs, cross the hall, and up another set of stairs. So 30 seconds. I do get distracted by the tea kettle in the kitchen. So add a couple of minutes, but then I'm at my desk. So reducing your commute time does so much for you. Obviously, it reduces the stress of sitting in traffic for two hours. It also gives you two hours more productive time each day to tend to things that matter rather than sitting in traffic or sitting on a subway train. Benefit number five, saving on gas. So again, with number four in that commute time, now you're saving on gas or transit tickets to brides, whatever that looks like. So pocket that money, spend it on something else, like when you want to go out to Starbucks and get a coffee or tea. Benefit number six, controlling your environment. Now this speaks to your physical office space in your home. And I'm a big fan of creating a space that's solely yours and something that you can call your own. And you're not sharing with other people, like perhaps in a traditional office setting where the cubicles are side by side. So personalizing your space, giving yourself a little space to breathe, setting up parameters in your family about that space being your workspace. That'll lead to more productivity, but more importantly, having that own space and having it in your home gives you more of a sense of ownership as well. Benefit number seven, more time with family, friends, and pets. And of course, this is the biggest one, right? Now we're not spending two hours a day commuting to and from the office. Those two hours can be spent in other ways. And typically they go to our family, friends, and even our family pets. So enjoy this time, this newfound time that you have with your family. Benefit number eight, healthier eating. This comes down to the choices you make when you do go into your kitchen during a break or a lunch break and choosing the right things from the fridge and choosing them in appropriate proportions. But again, it does reduce that urge to eat out and in that stressful rush to just get something back to your desk in a traditional office setting. Now you have a bit more control and maybe it's that step back where you can kind of analyze what your calories look like during the day when you're in an office setting and of course making those grocery shopping choices as well. Benefit number nine, more productive. Now this kind of sums up all the other benefits into one. But it should be a standalone benefit as well because you could enjoy all those other benefits but still squander your time. So now you've been given more time. You've been given potentially less distractions. Now you need to do something with that focused time. So again, my blog has a ton of productivity strategies for you. But now that you've been given that gift of time, let's use it productively. Benefit number 10, less stress. And this is another one of those benefits that may speak to the previous ones but it should be a standalone benefit because even with less commute time and a more serene office setting you might still feel very stressed about the work at hand. I know there were a few years in my work from home job where I still carried a ton of stress until I made some small changes in my lifestyle. But working from home did give me the opportunity to make those changes versus trying to make those changes in a traditional office setting where I wouldn't have been successful. So now I do have a life of less stress because working from home allowed me the opportunity to make those changes. Benefit number 11, this is more so for the ladies out there but you do save money on clothes. So not having to dress up every single day for work in expensive business attire does cut down on your clothing budget which is fantastic. Now it doesn't mean you should wear pajamas all day every day. You do need to put on some exercise clothes as well once in a while but you don't have to wear those fancy outfits and fancy dresses every day and the fancy heels as well. So it does save some money on your clothing budget. Benefit number 12, professional development. Again I have another video and blog post that talks about adult learning and again since I've started working from home I've had more opportunity to do more of that professional development. I've been able to attend more conferences because I can also work from the road as well as working from home. I've been able to read a lot more books. I've been able to even attend webinars during the day and into the evening because of my flexible work schedule. So again it's that whole work balance that comes from working from home and being able to manage your time a bit more effectively so you can fit in those professional opportunities that are important to you. I hope this list has encouraged you and allows you to see the possibilities about working from home. If you have experienced other benefits working from home I would love to hear from you as well. Please comment on this video below and visit my blog over at productivitypantry.com to leave your comments and check out my other blog posts about setting yourself up for success while working from home. Thanks for joining me today and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.