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Working at home: A short Intro

So you heard from a friend that he's earning money while staying at home, and you think that's kinda cool and you want to do the same thing. Or maybe you're getting tired working in the office and having to face heavy traffic congestions every day, and thus getting home late and tired, while your neighbor spends more time at home and yet manages to earns a decent income.

 Nowadays working at home is a very popular venture. Before we go further, I need to explain what it is, just to avoid confusion....

 Work-at-Home, home-based jobs, home-based workers, work from home: All of these mean 1 thing: you do the work without having to go to an office. However, there are 3 key aspects here:

 - Employee aspect: Also known as Telecommuting, telework, mobile work, remote work. This type of work allows an employee to do his daily job at home. The employer/company still pays him in the form of salary.

 - Freelancer aspect: In this scenario, the worker is not employed, but instead serve as an individual contractor. He seeks works online and gets paid by the contractor based on the agreed work and fee. This is popularly known as a virtual worker or virtual assistant (VA)

 - Online-business aspect: Here you are your own boss. Instead of putting up a physical store, you either manage your own website (an online store) or use an existing platform (website) to sell your products and services. Use of sites like Facebook, Shopify, Amazon, and eBay fall under this aspect.

 In my next blogs,  I'll try to expound on these different aspects, but for now, let's consider the pros and cons of working at home.

 Pros:
  • Convenient - no need to go to the office every day and get stuck in road traffic
  • Flexible Time - you're not time bounded (unless your online work requires you to work within specific time periods), or at least you are able to manage your own time and change time shift from time to time as you like
  • Possibility for growth - because you manage your own time and work, you can explore more opportunities or choose work that's more suitable for you
  • wider market - thanks to the Internet, you are able to expand your market both locally and globally. This translates to potentially gaining more income.
  • less cost - no need to rent an office area, you just need a suitable workspace somewhere in your house
Cons (referring to freelancer and online business aspects):
  • Risky - as opposed to being an employee who is sure to get income every month, working at home as a freelancer or managing an online business means your income may vary depending on how many jobs/contracts you get to work on.
  • Distractions - working at home also means you will be dealing with domestic interruptions like dealing with the kids, unexpected visitors, having to go out (if you are the one doing the shopping or paying bills or running errands), among others. These things may be counterproductive.
  • You're pretty much on your own - without a company or boss to back you up, you have to set up everything from scratch, and you have to your own management, monitoring, financial analysis, etc - something that may prove to be a burden sooner or later for some.
The key here is that you're dead serious at working at home, you have to learn how to take control and to learn how to deal with the cons I've just mentioned. If you do that successfully, then you'll definitely appreciate the Pros indicated above.


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