I AM a digital nomad. More specifically, I am now a ‘corridor nomad’ or ‘zip code nomad’ — the level of my nomadness mostly occurs within my work campus or within my community.
I am not like many of the contributors to this blog who I would consider ‘jet-set nomads.’ No, I no longer get to board the plane before everyone else (I’m usually in group two or three 
these days). I don’t get to sit in the first four or five rows of the plane. I often sit next to traveling families and have great sympathy for the mothers struggling down the aisle with a screaming child and her carry-on and a car seat. Andy’s post this week on favorite airport restaurants no longer resonates with me as it once would have (however, given my general fiscal conservatism, I would have say the cost - free - and quality of the rice balls, miso soup and sushi in the JAL Sakura Lounge at the Tokyo Narita International Airport would top my list).
These days, I eat most of my meals either in our work cafeteria (even though I brown-bag it frequently) or occasionally a local Austin restaurant.
But usually one day a week I work from my home office. On those days my wife is busy outside the home and our kids are in school. Many of you have this level of flexibility from your employers or are self-employed and can choose where you work. I think our work style resonates with a larger percentage of the readers of this blog. I’ve got my Nokia mobile phone by my side. I’m working via VPN on corporate network with my Latitude E6400. I’m on Microsoft Messenger so anyone can reach me. I’m doing twitter, Friendfeed and handling e-mail. I am connected, on the grid, plugged in - very reachable and very productive.
And yet, there are pros and cons of working from home. In honor of a former colleague who always said people can’t remember more than three of anything (thanks John McGrath), I’ve limited this to just three.
The benefits I see are:
1. Most of the time, my home office is completely free of distractions and interruptions. When I’m at the office, I sit in a six-foot by eight-foot cubicle, or ‘veal-fattening pen’ as Douglas Coupland described it in his book Generation X. Because of this, all the sounds from my area are free to invade my space. Some of those are man-made (colleagues who use their office for speaker-phone conference calls, the loud-laughers who sit near me and the drop-by managers). Some are not of man - there is the almost imperceptible white noise that you don’t even notice until it stops - then it drives you crazy all the time. One day last week, a compressor of some kind above our heads began growling so loudly that I couldn’t even speak on the phone. The distractions are nearly endless.
2. At my home office, the coffee and food are already paid for, and I have to walk all of about ten feet to get them, not the two flights of stairs at the office. I also don’t have to look for money and the bathroom is cleaner too.
3. At my home office, I can enjoy nature more easily. My office at home looks out to our tree-filled backyard and I can look out and see squirrels running around, birds flying in and out of the trees and even my dog rolling around in the grass. We live near a nature trail where, in the morning before my day begins (since I’m not commuting for 15-20 minutes), I can enjoy an extended run and see all kinds of suburban wildlife. I’m able to accomplish more work from home while also enjoying a slightly more relaxed pace. I am re-energized for the days when I’m in the office.
But there are some challenges, at least for me:
1. Unless you’re incredibly disciplined, you can easily be distracted by your personal list of to-dos: cleaning up your home office, organizing your iTunes collection and playlists, letting the dog out, perhaps even starting a load of laundry. I’m sure we all have certain things that would be a potential distraction.
2. At 3:30 each afternoon my kids get home from school and the noise goes up significantly, even with my office door closed — I try to do any conference calls before then. If I don’t have any calls, I’ll often leave about that time to go to my local coffee shop that offers free WiFi.
3. I miss my colleagues and the energy and camaraderie I get from being around them. In the office I’m able bounce ideas off them, brainstorm with them (or cerebral tsunami, as we now call it), sound out things we’ve been thinking about. No amount of conference calls, instant message sessions or e-mails can substitute for in-person collaboration.
For me, those are the pros and cons of working from home. I’m sure there are others but those are the tops ones that came to mind. But what about you? For those of you who don’t frequently travel the world and ‘just’ work from home, whether is consistently or infrequently, what are the benefits or challenges for you? And what have you done to make yourself more efficient there.
Uh oh, I gotta close the door, my kids are home from school. My daughter just called for me. “I’ll be there in a minute sweetie,” I say. Her response? “Oh yeah! Daddy’s home!” Ok, I’ll admit it, that’s another benefit - random hugs and smiles from loved-ones. Tomorrow, I’ll be back at the corporate office.
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Nomad Contributors
I used to work at home but starting this month I am renting a desk in an office. I just wasn’t disciplined enough to avoid the distractions. At the office, I get three times as much work done.
What’s nice is that from time to time I can have a “working at home” day, when I really appreciate the benefits of being able to work from home (or wherever I want).
I always find that “getting into” a task is the most difficult part. Once I start - and have been working at it for about 10 minutes - I’m less likely to get distracted. It’s a matter of starting and forcing myself to get into it. It helps to visualize the completed project, I find.
Since leaving my last employer I’ve first worked from home, then ‘borrowed’ office space from friends and my partner and I are now looking to rent our own space.
I love the occasional day of working from home, but I really like to keep work and home in different locations.
I can understand. HAving worked in offices for almost 20 years, I have been an at-home business owner since 2000. So far I have been disciplined enough to not watch daytime TV, even though I do a load of laundry on occasion. My biggest challenge is to get up and get food before my brain begins to fade. Have considered a co-op office setting for meeting higher profile clients.