Working from home is a good idea. Here are six reasons why!

Working from home is an idea whose time has finally come. What with the rising levels of internal and external traffic and general confusion, it’s time for people to take charge of their lives. And this time not from the steering wheel of their car or the tiny cubicle of trivial power, but from the comfort of their own homes.

Here are six reasons why you must consider working from home.

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Heightened productivity levels

According to an article on inc.com, “A company in Singapore where half of the staff worked from home for four days a week while the other half came into the office five days a week. The two-year study revealed that the employees who worked from home had a "massive, massive" (Nicholas Bloom's words) increase in productivity – almost equivalent to an additional workday – primarily because of fewer distractions and fewer pointless conversations.”

Office spaces are places where you are expected to give in the best years of your life. But most of them are hardly suited for the purpose. With time, most offices have become little worlds of their own, governed by their own strange laws, outlandish judgment and eccentric ideas of punishment. In such an environment, people often get too numb with boredom and as a result end up becoming monotonous wrecking balls.

Office politics at bay

Office politics can make one bitter. Worse, it can corrupt you to take practice in subjects of an absolutely ridiculous nature. Many succumb to the pressure of playing the part in order to be a part of existing groups. And in the name of seeking security they sacrifice their liberty (as Benjamin Franklin had once rightly stated) to speak their mind. Such self-derision often cost employees valuable time and make them invest their energy in places of unrest and confusion.

But when you are working from home, such problems do not materialize on a daily basis. Sure you might have a nagging mother-in-law or an over obsessive mother to deal with, but these are people you can deal with because their problems are more personal to you than your colleague’s. As a result, you save yourself a lot of anger, confusion and an overall sense of ‘what should I do now?’ or ‘whose side should I take?’And when you break free from the agonizing fetters of office politics, you discover a new sense of freedom and independence.

You save up travel time and related stress

When you choose to work from home, you pull yourself out of the traffic quagmire that’s become so common that’s it’s no more even questioned. You keep yourself safe from rash drivers, scuttling office-goers, bullying trucks and what not and manage to maintain your calm. The resulting tranquility will help you produce better quality work and perhaps in much lesser time.

More family time

You don’t have to miss special occasions anymore or plan robust lies to cover your guilt. When you work from home, you are close to things that matter the most to you. This sense of being present is enough to fill you with a sense of courage and confidence; positive traits that will spill over to the quality of your work as well.

Office wear equals comfy pajamas

At home you are the fashionista in pajamas and the stud in messy morning hair. When you work from home, looks are the last thing on your mind. You can be in your most comfy clothes, sit in that chair as you like, swivel as much as you want and just be.

However, going to work every day can mean dressing the part day after day. Sure, it keeps you in a sort of tempo but with time, choosing between skirts and tie can become utterly monotonous and wearisome.

Master of your time

Well, not technically. You still have deadlines to catch and reports to show, but when the same scenario is presented against a backdrop of homemade cup of coffee, proximity to the TV remote, long, uninterrupted conversations with chums instead of a milieu of bad coffee, blabbermouth colleagues, dinky cubicles and dank corridors, the prospects are inviting and exciting.

So you do own your time in terms of when you wish to get back to work, if you wish to put in extra hours and whether you can just go out for a spin. Other than that, a serious work-from-home opportunity remains the same in its expectations of you as an employee and it pays to not misunderstand them.

According to a recent Gallup study, “employees who work from home three to four days a week are far more likely (41 per cent versus 30 per cent) to "feel engaged" and far less likely (48 per cent versus 55 per cent) to feel "not engaged" than people who report to the office each day.”

Numbers don’t lie. Nor does that serenity on your face. Working from home is a great way to balance work and life and it can help curtail the level of stress most individuals are facing today because of working in office.