People generally believe that home is where the heart is, but how can you make space for the office? Working from home can be amazing until there is a disturbance from the neighbours or noises across the street. For many people, working from home is seen as a luxury – which can be afforded by some of the big companies – but the real question lies as to where we work more productively? The office or home.

People generally believe home is where the heart is, but how can you make space for the office? 

Although many people have worked from home during the COVID-19 lockdown, and fallen in love with this form of working, it hasn’t proven a complete success for everyone.

There are a number of different distractions that can arise from being at home and trying to complete the daily tasks 

In the office, the biggest drawback is the coworkers. They pose a real threat by distracting others from their work, for instance, starting conversations. Socialisation is important in the office but it’s a problem for you if you can be easily distracted. Moreover, when you are working from home, you can avoid distractions from your peers that can enhance your efficiency. There is also no pressure or obligations at home which can impact your productivity. 

When working in the office, the morning travel can wake you up for work, whereas at home the distance from the bed to the computer doesn’t make a prominent difference. On the other hand, working from home saves the travel time that can be used as an extra hour of sleep which will ultimately reflect in productivity.

Working at home can affect one’s productivity as the environment differentiates from working in an office. An office climate has a formal environment in which an individual is open to work efficiently. Likewise, to be efficient at home, you should do all the things you do in preparation for working in an office. 

Office’s have fixed timetables which can include in-person meetings that are productive to reach targets, but sometimes they do waste your time and break the flow of your work. If you are working from home, you can form your own timetable and manage your work for the day accordingly.

The office is specially designed with amenities needed for a person to work. Whereas, at home, you have to assign a place to work that will not be a place of leisure like the couch. Working from home doesn’t mean that you have to stick at home for the day, instead, go to wi-fi enabled cafe or a library that can change the working environment.

Social media can be helpful but most of the time at the working hours, it reduces productivity as you end up wasting a lot of time on it. In an office, you can remove all temptations of social media as mobile use is often prohibited.

 

-Kshitij Gupta