The benefits of working from home

Martin van Beynen writes at The Press:

Recently due to health hiccups I have started working from home a couple of days a week and it has been a bit of a revelation.

The first great advantage is not needing to get ready for work and be presentable. You can slob around unshaven and unwashed in your dressing gown all day and no-one is the wiser.

You can bet most home workers will be resisting getting caller video on their cellphones.

The ability to go from bed and straight to work is a huge time saver. No mucking about with ablutions and ironing that shirt or polishing the shoes.

No complicated transport arrangements and no time wasted commuting and getting stuck in traffic jams. No worries about whether it will be flat white or a latte today. I reckon I save two hours a day at least thanks to the simplicities of working from home.

Choosing your own hours is also a blessing. The work can be done in bursts over the 16 hours of waking time unless you sleep in, which someone as disciplined as me would, of course, never do.

I work from home primarily and it is great, for the reasons above. However I am now in the habit of always showering, shaving and changing before 7 am, as I found if you don’t do it when you first get up – then it is all too easy to just keep putting it off.

As more and more people work partially or fully from home, the economic impact could be significant. The productivity gains from not having to commute to work are significant. Also in some cases, you also save on reduced office rent.