I have been inserting "freelancing" in my life since 2012.
For the most part, it was all good but living in a country where one needs to have a full-time job to be able to apply for credit cards, postpaid lines, visa for traveling to other countries, etc. I must admit, it has some downsides too.
Digital Nomad?
A digital nomad is someone who uses desktop computers/laptops/smartphones and of course, the internet, for working remotely.
In this post, let me share with you all the Pros and Cons that I personally experienced during my almost 5 years of working at home.
PROS
- Flexible Time - Work anytime you want! There are no rules! (okay, except when you have a deadline!)
For most of my "work-from-home days" I was an online tutor, teaching English to ESL learners or just merely talking to them casually. In this line of work, I can work anytime I want, we had students from 13 countries so even if I choose to work at 3 am PHT, there will always be someone from the other side of the world who would want to talk to me. EASY MONEY!
When it comes to making logos/digital art/web design/digital paintings, you can still work anytime you want just as long as you can show something to the client or finish everything before the deadline.
Wear anything you want! Makeup? ain't nobody got time for that! - Everyday, I just wear a nice jacket or nice shirt then just wear boxers! Noone will know anyway, they only see my face! Hooray!
Never feel FOMO ever again- Never miss on any events ever again! You are your own boss!
Travel anywhere you want! - Because you have so much time, you can go anywhere you want and still work there or not! :)
Traffic? - What's that? One of the reasons why I quit my full-time job was because I was wasting 4-6 hours a day by just commuting. 4-6 hrs for a 10.4-kilometer journey. Yep! You read that right. Traffic and transportation means are just that bad from my part of the city. Thanks to home-based jobs, I no longer have to commute!
Save a lot of money - Working from home means that you can save on food costs and stay away from impulsive buying. Hahaha!
CONS
- The enemy - is no one but myself. I repeat I am the enemy. I am my only nemesis.
If you want to work at home, make sure you have A+ in Discipline. Most days I will choose not to work only to regret doing it during the payout season. I would often tell myself, "If only I worked a few more hours, my salary and incentive would have been 5x what I am about to receive."
Connection - Where I am from, ISPs are something every Filipino dread. Before, I would often experience intermittent connections. If you're someone who needs to talk to people using video calling services, you will hate this a lot. Loss of connection would often contribute to delays in sending your deliverables to clients as well. Good thing, the Philippines' Fiber connections are becoming better. I hope in the future, we'll experience super fast internet as well.
Documents - If you are working from home, you'd need to file your own taxes and also produce an ITR whenever you want to apply for visas. Getting bank accounts are a pain in the arse too! If you are home-based, chances are your payslips are just in digital form so you'd need a lot of documentation to prove that you are capable of paying credit cards or postpaid lines. Worse, your applications won't even be approved! I mostly pay all my gadgets in cash because of this :(
All in all, the Pros still win over the Cons!
Hooray for technology! Yey for working at home!