There are many tremendous pros to working at home. You’re not tied down to one location, you don’t have to commute, you can make lunch at home, and you can listen to podcasts and music out loud while you work. For more on these perks, check out my last blog post HERE.

However, there are some obstacles you must overcome when working at home. Here are a few of the biggest work-from-home barriers and my strategies for conquering them.

The first difficulty of working from home is how easy it is to get distracted. When working from an office, you are submerged in your work with few distractions. When you work from home, however, you’re around many things that can take your attention away from your work. This can include family, pets, television, house chores, video games, or anything else that can steal your focus.

My main strategy to overcome this first obstacle is to use breaks from work to give attention to something that is drawing my attention away from my work. I often take breaks to wash the dishes, watch part of a show, take a walk around the block, or hang out with my wife if she’s at home. Other than that, you just have to practice self-discipline which brings us to our next barrier.

You can’t work from home if you can’t effectively practice self-discipline. At an office or most other workspaces, you’re usually going to have bosses and colleagues around you to keep you accountable at getting your work done. However, this isn’t the case at home. Some work from home jobs may track your work, and all jobs will have deadlines to meet, but in the end, it’s up to you to make sure your work is regularly getting completed.

My strategy for this is breaking my deadlines into smaller goals and writing down these goals to keep the day from getting overwhelming. I also like filling in my team lead about where I’m at and what my plans are so she can hold me accountable. Although, if you think you’re someone who can’t be productive without direct supervision all day, work-from-home may not be for you (and that’s okay).

The last big issue working from home could create is that it could make it hard to make friends especially if you recently moved. I found this out the hard way when I moved from Kentucky to Florida with my wife being the only person I knew there. She worked at Disney, so she met a lot of people through her job, but I had a harder time and was lonely for a while after moving.

My first advice to meet people is to make it a priority to leave your home and do something almost every evening. This could be going to the gym, going to the grocery, playing pick-up basketball games, going to a trivia night at a bar, or anything like this.

Second, I found that regional Facebook groups are a great way to meet people. There are Facebook groups for everything: people who love playing boardgames, Disney fans, bookworms, etc. And wherever you move, there will be some group in the area that shares an interest with you (especially in a big city). Facebook events is also a good way to find places to meet like-minded people.

Thanks for reading!

If you’re interested in working from home or becoming a data analyst, check out my other posts and my social media below.

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