The average employee spends 200 hours, or nearly two working weeks, commuting to and from the office. The same time taken by astrophotographer Stephane Guisard to take a series of 1,220 individual images depicting our galaxy or 73 hours less than the time taken by 35-year-old Aron Ralston to free himself from a narrow slot in the Bluejohn Canyon, Utah. Benjamin Franklin famously said that time is money, and with the boom in home-working opportunities the time spent frenetically squeezing ourselves into rush hour trains can readily be converted into cash by taking up one of many telecommuting positions.
From carrying out market research surveys online to manning a virtual office, working from home can provide and ongoing source of income from settings as varied as a makeshift office in your living room to a beach front in Hawaii. An internet connection and a laptop or tablet are all that are needed to dust off the shackles of office life for good.
Working at Home
The average employee spends 200 hours, or nearly two working weeks, commuting to and from the office. The same time taken by astrophotographer Stephane Guisard to take a series of 1,220 individual images depicting our galaxy or 73 hours less than the time taken by 35-year-old Aron Ralston to free himself from a narrow slot in the Bluejohn Canyon, Utah. Benjamin Franklin famously said that time is money, and with the boom in home-working opportunities the time spent frenetically squeezing ourselves into rush hour trains can readily be converted into cash by taking up one of many telecommuting positions.
From carrying out market research surveys online to manning a virtual office, working from home can provide and ongoing source of income from settings as varied as a makeshift office in your living room to a beach front in Hawaii. An internet connection and a laptop or tablet are all that are needed to dust off the shackles of office life for good.
Why people work from home
Working from home is normally seen as the preserve of housewives or workers that may be housebound through illness or disability but an increasing number of employees are choosing to work remotely for their complete working week or part of it. According to the Office of National Statistics in 2010 there were 1.3m home workers and 3.7m employees who sometimes work from home or use home as a base. Teleworking or e-working doing paid surveys is offered by a number of companies and Directgov offers an interactive tool which tells you if your employer has a legal duty to consider your request for flexible working.
The advantages of becoming a homeworker are numerous and are normally centred on creating a better work-life balance:
Work for companies in remote locations without relocating: Multinational companies have been outsourcing their work to other countries for decades and now employees can bid for roles outside of their geographical remit. Whether it's offering English lessons to students in Asia via Skype or writing articles for publications worldwide.
Banish the 9 to 5: Mothers who want to fit their working day around the school run or workers who have a other job commitments can negotiate one or more telecommuting roles into their own timetables, including substituting weekdays for weekends or working anti-social hours. In his best-selling book The Four Hour Work Week Timothy Ferris argues that this is all the time needed to generate a healthy income as you let passive income streams do all the hard work for you.
Pursue your passion: If you've ever dreamt of writing a novel or starting your own business but were held back by fears of mounting bills and enduring yet another staycation, home-working could offer you the chance to earn money while simultaneously pursuing your dream career.
Become a portfolio worker: Are you a tecchie who secretly yearns to be an oil painter or an office junior with ambitions to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? Tele-worker positions help you make a smooth transition into portfolio working, where a worker holds multiple jobs or contracts in multiple fields with multiple companies, by allowing you to keep your current position and undertake other roles from home.
Reap tax benefits: Some employees who are working from home and self-employed may benefit from tax credits, as well the having the ability to claim expenses and allowances varying from equipment to petrol mileage.
Work from Home Methods
Although research has indicated that home-working can actually be more productive, daily distractions such as the postman, the lure of daytime TV and having the freedom to take unlimited coffee breaks away from the watchful eyes of a hovering boss means that teleworking as a professional choice has to be honed down to a fine skill.
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