Monday, April 26, 2010

room service

Have you ever been shown around someone’s house or shown others around your own home and come across the room that is identified as the “favorite”? It seems like there is always one room that holds the crown, but it’s different for different people. I have been to other people’s homes where that room has been the family room, workout room, basement, bedroom, kitchen, wine cellar, etc… My favorite is a little less typical than most. Mine is the closet in the corner of my garage. Not the bedroom, the kitchen or the living room, and certainly not my home-office. This may seem a bit odd at first, but let me tell you why this little dark room in my garage is my favorite place in the house. Every time I go into the room it makes me smile. I don’t spend a lot of time in the room as it is not a place to hang out in, but I feel like the purpose and the contents of the room define a little bit about who I am and how I try to live my life. It also reminds me of how lucky and fortunate that I have been in my life. You see this is the place in my house that contains some of my most valued possessions – my snowboard, mountain bike, hiking gear, golf clubs, suit cases, basketball and softball equipment, and other little recreational items that I enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy other areas of my house, but none of the other areas of the house give me the same sense of pride and excitement. One of the best things about working from home is the time that it frees up for me to enjoy other things by not having to struggle with the daily commute and other things that drag down my productivity during my workday. It gives me the ability to enjoy more of the things that I enjoy doing without having to sacrifice things at work. For example, when I worked in an office and commuted 45 minutes to work one way, I would leave the office at 5:00 or 6:00 and not be home until 6:00 or 7:00 on in the evening… and that was on a good day. My ability to hop on my bike, or go hit a bucket of balls at the driving range after getting home was pretty much non-existent or it made for some pretty late nights spent catching up on things like eating, chores around the house, or relaxing with family. Working from home enables me to do those things and still have time to fit in all of the other things like actually living in my house rather than just having a place to eat and sleep (and in this case – work). This is not to say that all of this does not come with its own set of challenges. Work-life balance is always something that you have to work at to manage and get right – if you ever find yourself with too much time allocated to either side of the equation, the chances are, something is getting seriously neglected on the other side. This can go in the opposite direction of what most might expect for people that work from home, as well. We often hear from people that work remotely that they have a hard time pulling themselves away from work because their work place is never separated from the other aspects of their home living. Managing this takes a certain level of deliberate attention to the matter. It takes discipline, maturity, and an understanding what it means to set limits – on both sides of the equation. The point is that working from home may not be for everybody, and for those of which it does work for, there is still some effort and work that is required to make it work appropriately. Virtualwirks, was established with this in mind, and has built this core understanding of the remote worker and work environment into the virtualwirks model. Employees and employers need to have a common understanding of what this work-life balance is and what some of the tools and techniques are to manage it effectively and our mission is to help both groups achieve this. Starting a business and working from home poses the same challenges of finding balance and making sacrifices, and the founding partners of this company are intimately familiar with this. We would love to hear your comments and experiences with your challenges or victories in finding the right work-life balance and how you manage them. Or if you don’t have anything to share in that regard, you can always just share what your favorite room in your house is…

–Tadd