Work

Choosing a location for your business is a large factor to consider before setting up. Below I give a short description of the disadvantages and advantages you are likely to experience as you work from either your home, a coffee shop or shared office space.

Working from home

Advantages

  • One of the advantages of working from home is that you have ample time to do your work. This is because you do not necessarily have to dress up or have to commute, you merely just wake up and start working.
  • Working at home also benefits you psychologically as you do not get most of the stress that people who go to offices experience. This stresses may include; unfriendly co-workers, clogged up traffic as you head to work and also going to work in itself every day is quite tiresome. When you work at home, you are your own boss and you take no criticism from no one.
  • Working from home also helps you to be closer to your family. You don’t have to worry about the safety of your kids as they are there with you at close proximity.
  • Working from home also saves you on cost as you do not have to waste money on transport or buying food from a restaurant.
  • Working from home also benefits you with a healthy life as you are able to exercise easily when you are at home also you tend to eat more healthy when working from home as you have a wider choice range when it comes to what you will eat. People in offices tend to go for fast foods or the free donuts that are shared in the office. This is not a healthy lifestyle.

 

Disadvantages

  • While working at home you are bound to experience a majority of distractions for example; random visits, distractions from your wife or kids and even distractions from your neighbors. This reduces your productivity levels and thus you are not able to reach your business goals.
  • In a home environment, you do not have anyone to share with and thus it gets lonely. This loneliness can demotivate you causing you to do other things rather than concentrating on the work at hand.
  • Working from home does not avail you to the vast resources available in a normal office. This makes you incur additional costs so that you can have these facilities to better your business. These facilities include things such as internet connectivity which is vital for any business.

Working from a coffee shop

Working at your favorite Starbucks or Java can help you achieve quite a lot if you manage your time correctly. Below I give a few of the disadvantage and advantages of basing your business in a coffee shop.

Advantages

  • The biggest advantage I might say for working from a coffee shop is that you have a wide variety of drinks and food to choose from. Depending on the coffee shop you visit, you will have a choice of a variety of foods that you can indulge in as you do your work.
  • Coffee shops also offer a peaceful environment where you can concentrate and go about your work easily. Coffee shops also offer a serene environment away from distractions helping you to be more productive.
  • Most coffee shops enable one to have access to free wifi which can be used for communication and improving on your businesses productivity by increasing your knowledge.
  • Working from a coffee shop exposes you to an environment with lots of people to talk to and thus you are able to interact and share your ideas. This beats the loneliness that one can experience when they choose to work from home.

Disadvantages

  • If you opt to work from a coffee shop be prepared to carry money for parking and also for coffee or food you will pay whilst you are there. You cannot just stay in a coffee shop to work and expect to pay nothing, you must pay for drink or food so that you may continue to enjoy your stay.
  • Coffee shops also have opening and closing time’s this may be inconvenient to you as you cannot work while the coffee shop has not opened.
  • Security can also be an issue in coffee shops for example in the case that you were working on a project then you have the sudden urge to go to the toilet, as the toilet is at arms reach, you leave your laptop there only to find it stolen when you get back. This may make you incur heavy losses.

A shared working space

Advantages

  • In a shared working space such as SOMAcentral, people from different professions are able to network and share their ideas. This brings about innovations and also avails one to a myriad of opportunities.
  • It is always fun to work in a friendly environment, a shared working space contributes to this as different people from different walks of life live in a sort of community where they are able to work and share with each other.
  • A shared working space also saves on cost as one is not forced to rent or buy a building to work as his/her office space. One does not also incur the costs for managing the office space and this tends to be very convenient.
  • A shared working space is an inspiring, creative, comfortable and flexible environment that enables one to have maximum concentration while working. Coworking spaces in inspiring hubs like Camden provide workers with access to a comfortable and creative workplace for a fraction of the price.

Disadvantages

  • In this type of environment, there is less privacy as everyone is situated under the same roof. This fact can make this type of environment also insecure as you do not know quite well the person who is working beside you.
  • The fact that people share the resources, one cannot be able to get tailor-made facilities that best suit their business acting like a big disadvantage.
  • This option is not also suited for businesses with lots of employees as one may need to group the employees in relation to the work they do, for better management.

All in all, it all goes back to the budget. If you have more budget, coworking spaces beat the other two options hands down, but working from home and from a coffee shop have their own advantages as well.