Possessing a job that allows one to work at home is undeniably appealing, and for good reason. Employees can designate their own start times, structure their own lunch hours and break sessions, run errands whenever they wish, avoid overwhelmingly long commutes with crazy, road-rage-fueled drivers, and find numerous additional aspects that make work at home careers so enticing.

Self-discipline becomes a major factor, however, in the efficiency of those employees. All those perks require discipline to ignore, because often, they detract from the efficiency of the worker. Apart from dealing with perks, one must also maintain focus while unpredictable distractions emerge, and keep emerging. A crying child needs attention, for instance, because she is sick and cannot currently fend for herself. Once that situation is resolved, the employee returns to his desk, only to find the cat has strode across the keyboard and accidentally closed every application, rendering all his work void.

Depending on one’s job field, income can also be hindered by working at home. Freelance writers and designers, for instance, are unable to foresee which clients will contact them in the future. They can possess unequaled amounts of talent, but if they do not contact the right people, or delay contacting said people, their opportunities will be severely limited. Plus, applying to jobs over the internet has lead to employers regularly skimming resumes instead of scrutinizing them, or even simply dismissing them before even taking a cursory glance.

At a traditionally structured corporation, in which employees always arrive at nine and leave at five, income is secure, because their jobs usually provide guaranteed annual salaries (unless they get fired for sub-par production). But if the employee remains a productive worker and repeatedly produces a at a steady rate, the option exists for promotions, incentives, etc. Just staying around in a company for a sustained period of time increases the chances the employee may be considered for a higher position.

Those kinds of options are unavailable to freelance workers. Frequently, they invest most of their efforts on contacting potential clients through the Internet, which can become a rather unreliable method of applying. Because of the overwhelming number of applications employers receive for each position posted on a job-hunting site, such as CareerBuilder, they commonly dismiss viable candidates without taking one look at the submitted resume or work samples. The dismissal comes as a result of simply having too many applications through which to sift, so employers arbitrarily ignore applicants.

Some employees at traditional office buildings, however, are taking aspects of freelance careers and attempting to incorporate those dimensions into their own careers. That is, they are discovering more avenues that allow them to work at home while retaining the preconceived work structure of their typical office position. Many positives arise as a result of being able to transfer from a building office to a home office. Pregnant mothers, new mothers, work-at-home fathers, disabled employees, for example, can benefit greatly by working at home, which allows them to balance personal obligations and career-oriented obligations more easily.

In the December 2005 issue of Black Enterprise Magazine, author Marcia A. Reed-Woodward quotes Jane Anderson, director of Midwest Institute of Telecommuting regarding the steady rise in telecommunication jobs. Anderson claims “There is a trend toward making jobs more mobile and permitting employees to have remote access to work from home.” Her claim is supported by statistical data contained within a survey by the International Telework Association. The survey found that “the number of teleworking employees grew from 41.3 million in 2003 to 44.4 million in 2005 and projects that number to climb to 51 million by 2008.”

Employees armed with that statistical data may assume their suggestion to work at home will be met with resounding applause by their bosses. However, the largest influential factor when working at home is procrastination. Without a boss looming over one’s shoulder, ready to disparage or criticize the slightest fault, a worker may find it much easier to succumb to numerous omnipresent distractions. Personal phone calls may be made at any time, to anyone. There’s no such thing as “company time,” and therefore all time is personal. That freedom places a greater emphasis on the significance of self-discipline, which is not something easily developed if one does not inherently possess it.

Yet if one believes that they will operate with equal efficiency if they work at home, a good idea is to gather some research from freelancers relating to daily operations, how they manage aforementioned ever-present distractions, and the general states of their careers as they work at home.

James Scottworth enjoys writing articles about small business. Previously he’s penned about how to get paid for surveys, and why taking surveys for moneycan be a great part time job for almost anyone.

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