Tag: Self-employment

To home work or not to?

Posted on by philipdodson

This is an interesting dilemma for millions of freelancers. There are obvious attractions to working from home when you are a freelancer, especially in the early days of setting up, as costs are often an issue.

Home worker

People see the costs savings of not having to commute, not having to buy lunches, not paying for space and generally the time savings too.

They initially view working from home to be distraction free, especially attractive if you’ve just left the open plan office of your previous paid employment job.

You also feel that you will be happier at home, as you can enjoy a work/life balance, that previously you could only dream of with the ‘7am to 7pm’ life of working for someone else.

However, after a while, what happens is, you realise that you get increasingly lonely working at home, you start to crave those ‘distractions’ of others. You come to the conclusion that some of those distractions were in fact valuable interactions.

You miss the knowledge sharing, the boost to morale of having someone to share things with, especially important when things are going less well. After all, we are all going to have crap days.

The next thing, you find is that the motivation starts to drop, as you ease into a blurred work/life environment. There are often distractions in an office, but there are different ones at home.

Like partners, children, pets, Jeremy Kyle, Playstation (maybe this just me), shops, washing to hang out, dinner to put on, ironing etc etc. OK, so we will have varying degrees of self-discipline, but you will get distracted.

Cabin fever sets in and that’s when it is time to get out the house and seek people. Although often people think that the solution is to head to a coffee shop.

The challenge with working in a coffee shop is that they are noisy and the wrong sort of nosiy – music, kids etc. Then typically the Wi-Fi is poor, you feel guilty that you haven’t bought a coffee for at least an hour, there is still no chance of any meaningful conversation and of course you will have to take your laptop to the toilet. When you come back your seat will be gone.

Until more recently the next option was very often a serviced office, which for most freelancers was a cost and commitment too far.

Now there are options – coworking spaces have sprung up all over world and are opening at a rapid rate as the rise globally in self-employment continues to grow off the charts.

What coworking offers, if you find the right one, is a flexible workspace, so you can still enjoy the good elements of home working. It will provide you with a community, something to belong to and that for me is the biggest benefit of coworking over full time home working.

As a freelancer, who has left the world of paid employment for the freedom of self-employment, you have closed the door on your support system, the community of colleagues and that leaves you on your own, no longer belonging.

What coworking provides is others to share ideas, share knowledge, help you and to do business with. It is the serendipity of those chance meetings, that will lead eventually to opportunity to grow your business, that you will never get being at home.

The other advantages of coworking spaces is they often run workshops, events, business networking groups. They can provide you access to mastermind groups and mentoring. So a chance to grow your network beyond the coworking space regulars and get invaluable advice for you and your business.

At the end of the day businesses, especially solo-preneurs, are all better of working and collaborating with others than they are trying to ‘row their own boat’.

Human beings are designed to be social and to work together and not be on their own.

This is what is critical in coworking – collaboration. Your products/service etc will be greatly enhanced by working with others. You will also increase your reach and customer base by sharing and working with others.

So the answer to the question ‘To home work or not to?’ is – not to home work all day every day, as you risk isolation and missing opportunities to grow you and your business.

Freedom

Posted on by philipdodson

Freedom

Day 3 of 750Words.com and I’m getting addicted to this.

Today has been a great day and is one of those days that make you feel alive. I started the day of #AtTheHUb (@Work Hubs my co-working space) with a great networking breakfast that we host every 2 weeks for 4Networking.

I always love these meetings as it’s a chance to further connections and create new ones. That is so important to life. I no longer feel I work, I feel life is a series of connections and some lead to absolutely nothing and others lead to great things, that’s not measured by money.

I have been a member of 4N for about 3-4 years and it’s only in the last 1 & 1/2 that I have really got it and started to see the benefits of just building relationships. So many people use networking to sell their stuff, often relentlessly. I use it to make connections and build relationships, I never look at it as an opportunity to make money.

The fact is, that when people trust, know and like you, they will buy your stuff over ‘randoms’, when the need arises. So you can be completely chilled about it and not look at everything with the ‘ROI specs’ on.

The benefits I get in terms of advice, connections, fun and friendship will always outweigh whatever financial benefits that might come.

After that I headed over to Hackney Wick to catch up with Bernie & Neil, my #iCollDay buddies (International Collaboration Day) at 90 Mainyard, my favourite co-working space after the hub. Always enjoy these meets and today was an important one in terms of cementing the future of this event/movement (we’re changing the world as we know it LOL).

My top core value is freedom, not like the freedom to lie about on a beach all day or to roam the planet like a nomad. I mean the freedom to make my own choices, decide my own direction in life and be free to pursue the dreams/goals that I have.

So days like today remind me that I have that freedom to choose what I do and when I do it, one of the biggest pluses of self-employment.

So many are stuck in jobs that they hate and are trapped by needed to earn enough money to live the lifestyle that we’re all ‘sold’.

Therefore, I am grateful that I can do what I want, which also means that I need to stay focused and use the time wisely to ensure I stay free and happy. In order to maintain this freedom I need to work hard.

There are no short-cuts to success in life in whatever you are doing or want to achieve. There must be ownership of your life, commitment, discipline and responsibility.

I am now sitting writing my 750 words for the 3rd day in a row, this discipline is important for me in a number of ways.

Firstly, I want to improve my writing, as I have always wanted to write a book. So like anything in life, if you want to get better, there is no substitute for hard work and practice. As one famous golfer said ‘the more I practice, the luckier I get’.

The second thing about doing this every day, is it allows me to think, reflect and go through what is happening. We are all guilty of going from one day to another without reviewing or reflecting.

The third benefit to this, is a time-out from the normal daily routines, which is a huge benefit. I put my headphones on, music playing and I drift off in to my own thoughts and world. Otherwise you run ragged.

Lastly, if the piece isn’t up to scratch it doesn’t matter, as it is my choice to share it or not. So it’s a great place to brain dump, let off steam, and to exercise the mind.

Today, hasn’t finished yet, I am about to catch up with Bernie on what’s happening in the sharing economy. Instead of doing this in a stuffy meeting room, we are going to take a walk through The Olympic Park to Stratford.

This is another benefit of the freedom of self-employment, you don’t have to follow the old school norms that are ingrained in to most organisations.

Lastly, the best part of the day for me is the evening walks I do with #TeamDodson (my family). We have been going for a walk most evenings now altogether, as often as we can, for about an hour. We walk through the countryside around where we live. It’s chance to talk about our days and to share stuff, at the same time as getting some good exercise.