Work from home or an office?

When starting your own business you obviously have many decisions to make about how your business will be run. However, one of the most important decisions you will have to make will be whether or not to work from home.

The majority of people who start their own business, especially in the services sector will setup and continue to operate from home. The main reason is obviously cost and means that any outgoings can be kept to a minimum.

I started my own business Red Window Design from the downstairs toilet of our house. I operated the company from there for 12 months while I was looking for office space which I could afford.

The following points provide some basic advice that will hopefully allow you to make a decision on where you will operate you business from.

Pros

• You will be able to keep costs low as you will have no extra office rent or mortgage to pay.
• You will be able to reduce your travelling time and cost to and from work.
• Flexibility of being able to decide when you spend your time doing work and other tasks around your home.
• Have the ability to spend more time with your family.

Cons

• End up in a slack routine as there is no pressure to start work at a certain time. This can only be dealt with by having a lot of self-discipline.
• Not being able to separate work from home which could end up in work not being done on time and result in your business suffering.
• You can very easily feel isolated as you will not have the same level of interaction with people as you would at an office.

Depending on the kind of person you are will depend on whether or not you will find it easy working from home.