Growing up, I was always intrigued by the TV show documentaries which pictured life on the Oregon trail or living on the American Frontier. One reason was for the sense of adventure, but looking back now, part of it was admiring the family life of the people during that time.
Yes, I’m sure that a lot of it was romanticized, but there is something attractive to just living a simpler life (even if it was by necessity), and being able to work alongside your family for a majority of the day. Although not dying of dysentery is nice too.
Farming and working in the trades is also very different from my line of work (software engineering). It’s obvious that my three year old isn’t going to sit next to me and help write my next few lines of code. Not only would the code be in shambles, but there would be way too many references to Pokémon. But, what can we do to continue to spend more time together as a family, especially when it comes to work?
The most obvious answer for me has been getting the opportunity to work from home. Before all of the changes that happened with COVID-19, my workplace did allow working from home, but it always felt taboo unless you had an appointment or special reason.
With many workplaces being forced into allowing work from home, it went from being taboo to being normal. My work is now trying to encourage people to physically come back into the office, but seems to be struggling to get people there willingly.
Besides the cliché perk of being able to work in your underwear (I’ve only done it a few times), my fellow coworkers and I seem to be enjoying the benefits and in many ways, prefer it to working in the office.
Surprisingly, even the more extroverted employees are enjoying the extra flexibility and benefits it provides.
Saving resources
The first thing that used to come to mind when thinking of working from home was, “Think of all the gas money I would be saving!” And it’s definitely true. Looking back at our budget, there was one month during the pandemic where we only paid for thirty dollars of gas.
My commute is a little bit lower than the average of twenty seven minutes, but all of these car costs definitely add up after a while. Another often overlooked part of cars is the general wear and tear that daily driving of an hour can do to a car. Whether that means oil changes needing to happen sooner, more tread wear on your tires, or more miles being tallied on your odometer, they all have a negative effect on your already depreciating asset.
I was thinking about adding another section in here for eating out, but personally, I don’t think it has as big of an impact that other people think it does. If you were already going out to eat for lunch at the office, anecdotally, you will either still go out to eat for lunch, or simply have it delivered to your house.
Quantity time
Yeah you read that right, not quality time, but quantity time. While quality time is important, I believe that it’s more important to simply be around and present with your children. Especially with younger children, the extra time starts building and solidifying the relationship, even if you aren’t doing anything particularly exciting.
At a minimum, your child will start to pick up on the fact that you are probably important in their life just by the sheer quantity of time spent around them.
Luckily for my wife and I, our youngest child was born a month before most of the world shut down due to the pandemic. A few weeks after taking some time off from work for that, our office doors were shut and told that we were going full time remote. This created some changes in habits for our family, with me taking the early morning shift of watching our boys in the morning.
Anytime between five and five thirty is when our kids would be up and ready to start the day. Since my wife handled most of the night wakings, it was my duty to head downstairs with them and play until I started work around 6:45.
As the months went on, my oldest child started sleeping later so I got to have extra time just being with and around my youngest son. I specifically remember feeling a special bond with him that I didn’t have with my oldest, simply because we had that time in the mornings together.
We weren’t doing anything extravagant either, we would play together a little, but I remember doing a lot of reading those mornings as well. Subconsciously, it’s possible that I was picking up on little things like “Wow, look at how much he’s lifting his head today!” or ”He’s reaching for his stuffed animals a lot this morning!”.
Before working from home, I would spend this time getting ready for work. Because I no longer had to drive into the office, and was able to invest that time with my children instead.
Encourages flexibility
As a software engineer (and millennial), one thing that is very attractive is the ability to support a flexible schedule. Previously, you needed to be available from 10-2 every day, and not miss any meetings.
While it’s definitely important to not miss any needed meetings still, our workplace has become much more flexible with when and where you get your job done. Everyone is still expected to put in a full work day, but how that happens is generally up to you. I know people who have worked for months at a family cabin up north, and coworkers who consistently start their work days at 4am and 10am.
Besides the obvious benefit of easily being able to move around hours for various doctor/dentist appointments, I’ve been able to use this flexibility to help out my wife as well. Whether it was “needing” to go to Hobby Lobby to spend her budget on décor, or her planning an event at our local church, this extra flexibility has helped our family’s sanity and allowed us to take on extra opportunities.
Focus
The final benefit is more of a controversial one, but I believe that working from home helps you to have better focus at work. I’ve spent some time reading about different techniques for becoming more productive at work and the ones that tend to resonate with me revolve around staying focused on one specific task for a small amount of time.
This used to be a bigger challenge when I worked in our bedroom, but since renovating and moving into our basement I have been able to remove most of the distractions. There are still plenty of times where a kid or two will wander down and want to say “Hi to daddy”, but these interruptions are much more far and few between.
Even with your family possibly distracting you at home, is it any worse than your distractions at the workplace? Depending on your position and how close you are with your coworkers, in person interruptions while you are at your desk can happen just as much, if not more.
These could be a variety of things from work related questions or team members just asking how you’re doing. Next time you are in the office, try to keep a mental tab on how much time is spent on doing non focused work.
Please note that I’m not trying to imply that all non focused work is bad, as it can greatly improve team morale and your relationship with your coworkers. Despite those benefits, it feels like it’s much easier for extra pointless meetings to be scheduled or someone to grab you for things that aren’t important.
Being comfortable
Finally, working from home allows you to be physically comfortable so that you can focus on solving problems at work. The environment that you work in is now fully in your control.
Before we were forced to work from home my workplace was fairly laid back, with the need to wear business casual clothes being removed years ago. There were still some rules (albeit very loosely enforced), about not being able to wear athletic shorts, sweatpants, or hats. Since working from home, all of those requirements are gone. Do you want to show up in a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants for work? Great, get your work done and be comfortable.
Another annoying thing I’ve noticed since going back to the office occasionally is how bright all of the lights are, and how cold they consistently keep the temperature. A lot of those switches are gauges that aren’t meant to be controlled by you in the office, but in your home office you have complete control. Some of these might seem like small things, but when it’s a lot of small things, it adds up.
By no means is this an exhaustive list, but just the few things that I noticed the past couple of years. So if you can, why aren’t you working from home? Could you negotiate working just a few days from home? Maybe try a probationary period of it?
Reaction Questions
Could your job be done from home? How about some kind of hybrid schedule?
If not, are there any ways you can take advantage of some of these benefits? Examples could include working from home a few days a week, asking your employer to dial back the dress code, or negotiating flex time for appointments.
If you are currently working from home, quickly jot down your favorite things about it and spend some time being grateful for the opportunity.
