2. Working From Home

Working from home is the cheapest and easiest option when starting your business but there is a number of important considerations to weigh up before you decide it is the one for you.

• Is there enough space to accommodate you and your work equipment without interfering with the living space used by other occupants?
• Will other members of the household distract you while you are working?
• Will you have adequate and uninterrupted access to phone lines, power points and so on?

Ideally, you will want to have a separate room, away from the passage and noise of other occupants (including pets), which you can use as your office.

A basement or a loft would be a good choice, as would a disused garage, outhouse or shed, provided the space is dry, warm and secure.

Make sure your chosen office area has plenty of headroom, good light, power sockets and so on. You may well want to install a separate phone line or two, for your answer-phone and fax.

Mixing work with family life

Unless you live alone, when working from home you will have to consider the impact other members of your household will have on your business and vice versa. If the other occupants are away during the day you should have less to worry about. But what if you have to work late? And will they mind you working when they have a day off?

Working at home requires serious discipline, both for you and for other members of the household. Just as you will need to resist the temptation to extend your breakfast or lunch break with some ‘research’ in front of the telly, so you will need to stress to others that you cannot be disturbed when working.

This can be incredibly difficult. Some people refuse to believe that work can happen outside an office and, no matter how busy you are, will gravitate towards you with cups of tea and requests for ‘a quick chat’ that can end up robbing you of precious time.

Rebuffing such approaches can put a strain on relationships; you will need to learn how to handle situations diplomatically so you can make it clear when you cannot be disturbed without causing offence.

Some home workers get round the problem by adopting a closed-door policy or similar ploy to indicate that they cannot be interrupted. Others have an ‘off-limits’ rule during given hours of the day. It can be worth talking to people you know who work from home to find out how they cope.

These issues are not just about the effects other people will have on your business. Studies by BT, the telecommunications company, on ‘remote working’ (in other words, working away from an employer’s office) have shown that while people who work from home usually have an increased quality of life, the quality of life of their partners can suffer.

Much of this is because it is easy for home workers to end up doing overtime, eating into what other members of the family consider ‘rest time’. This is something you may need to weigh up when considering where to work.

Dealing with interruptions

No matter how well you manage to separate your home–office environment from the rest of your home, there will always be occasions when you have to deal with unexpected interruptions. Here are a few tips on what to do:

• In the first place, if you definitely need uninterrupted peace and quiet for a particular length of time, for example to take an important call, it is worth warning other members of the household beforehand.
• If you need to take a break from your work, save any documents that you are working on at your computer, even if you expect to be away for only a moment or two. (In fact, it is a good habit to save your work at regular intervals anyway, perhaps at every paragraph or two in the case of important documents, as computer crashes have a nasty habit of coming unannounced.)
• Also make a note of the time, if you are charging clients on an hourly or day-rate basis.
• If you are in the middle of an important train of thought or piece of research, it is a good idea to jot down a few notes to help you pick up where you left off when you get back.
• Keep an eye on how long your break lasts and bear in mind any time-sensitive projects you might have in hand.

You are your own boss, so how you organise your time is up to you. If you need to make time during the day to cope with household commitments, for example because you have a family, you can catch up with work later on, or even decide to cut down the amount of work you take on. However, if you are to provide a professional service then you will need to make sure that outside influences do not stop you from meeting clients’ deadlines in good time.

Providing a professional image

One constraint of using your home as your office is that it is not likely to be an ideal place in which to hold meetings with clients. This should not usually present a problem. Most clients will be more than happy to see you on their own premises (after all, it saves them travelling). Failing that, a pub or restaurant can be a good place for informal meetings.

If you really need to impress a client, for example in a pitch for a large project, you might want to consider hiring a meeting room in a hotel or suchlike (here again, however, visiting your client’s offices is likely to a better idea).

Providing a serious, professional front extends to areas like background noise during phone calls. Quiet music might be acceptable; the sound of a television is unlikely to inspire confidence (and in any case is likely to impair your ability to listen to the caller). With unavoidable background noise (such as the kind my children often create when I am on the phone), the only solution may be to come clean and explain that you are working from home.

Financial and legal considerations

If you work from home then you are entitled to offset a proportion of your household costs, such as electricity and heating, against tax. The taxman will accept an estimate of the amount of energy costs which can be attributed to your work.

So, for example, if you have four rooms in your house (excluding bathrooms, closets and so on) and use one for work, you could claim a quarter of your gas and electricity bills against tax. The same goes for your telephone bill, if your phone is used for business and personal calls. Be sure not to over-claim, however; your accountant will be able to advise on what proportion of costs is likely to be acceptable. (For more on this, see the next chapter.)

On the legal side, it is wise to make sure that your working from home does not invalidate any insurances or tenancy or mortgage agreements.

Provided they are notified, most insurers, landlords and lenders are unlikely to have a problem with you working from home, as long as you make it clear you will not be receiving customers on the premises. In some cases, your insurance premiums might even go down because you can claim to be at home all day.