Walk into a coffee shop during any time of the day and you will see handfuls of casually dressed workers buried in their laptops. They look so happy -- but even more so -- they look so productive. Just watching these chilled-out-coffee-drinking telecommuters, it is obvious there are abundant benefits in telecommuting: Great work-life-balance, lower levels of stress, greater amounts of efficiency...the list goes on and on. So when given the freedom to work from home, why is it so many telecommuters often prefer to flee the kitchen table in favor of their local coffee shop or restaurant?
Check out these four reasons telecommuters benefit from ditching their home office in favor of their preferred public wifi spot:
- The Perfect Amount of Distractions: When it is too quiet, you are easily distracted. When it is too crazy at home with kids or TV or looming chores, it is impossible to concentrate. In an employer's office, there are useless meetings and chatty co-workers to snatch up your time. A restaurant or a coffee shop can offer the perfect balance of anonymity mixed with ideal periphery distractions to help you zone in on your work.
- A Break From All Those Responsibilities: Sometimes it can just be too much. Your office is a constant reminder of all the looming work just waiting for you to finish. There are stacks of to-dos and reminders of deadlines everywhere. Add on top of that constant work an additional project with a deadline and you have a recipe for productivity disaster. Just like trying to eat an entire elephant in one sitting, you find yourself giving up on your workday before you even start. A two-hour trip to the local wifi spot to grab a drink and a couple of hours of work time doesn't make things feel so impossible.
- Feels Less Like Work: Sometimes getting out in the real world and breathing in some new scenery can spark creativity. Hitting your local watering hole for a drink and a bite to eat, while tackling your daily to-dos, can feel more like a mini-vacation than actual "work".
- Allows Human Interaction: Any telecommuter knows it is possible to go weeks before seeing the light of day, let alone another human. At some point, shut-in telecommuters may even start to wonder if owning nine cats and plastic furniture is weird. Humans are social creatures by nature. We need to get out among our own and feel the energy generated by crowds and human interaction. Being in the "real world" brings back perspective and gets creative juices flowing again (and reminds us all that nine cats is just ridiculous and plastic furniture belongs in our Grandma's house).
The benefits of telecommuting are incredible. To further enhance these benefits and build even greater telecommuting productivity and balance, consider taking your work into a bookstore, restaurant, coffee shop or public library every once in a while. Working in a new environment and being around actual humans can revive work energy and further improve productivity and quality levels.
Interested in telecommuting jobs or wonder if telecommuting is for you? Check out this Telecommuting Starter Guide.
