Work from Home Handbook: Flex Your Time, Improve Your Life

This is a useful book, full of ideas about making a flexible work schedule work out, for employer and employee. I have long been a fan of Nolo Publishing, which communicates about legal topics without drowning the reader in legalese. I may look up some of their other books on related topics. Highly recommended.

I found this slim volume very helpful in providing ideas and general information about finding a job that can be worked from home. The first couple of chapters deal with the feasibility of working from home in a given job. Some time is spent sort of psyching up the reader about the multitude of benefits in telecommuting or webcommuting. If you are already interesting in this kind of work, then you probably won't need too much convincing. But it does cover many of the practical issues that are important in deciding whether it is right for you and your lifestyle. The most useful sections deal with making a proposal for your employer. Convincing your current employer that you can do the same work out of the office can be a tricky issue, especially if your company isn't used to letting workers do that. There are many potential objections that might be raised, and the book offers counter-arguments to prevent your goal from being shot down. Also covered are what types of jobs to look for - and suggestions of where/how to find them - if you are considering a new job that will allow tele/webcommuting. All in all, despite being less than 200 pages long this book definitely serves it's purpose. It is loaded with tips and advice on issues you might not have even considered. One of those issues is tax ramifications when working from home. I look at this book as almost being in the self-help category as well - offering a great deal of hope for those who want to leave the daily commute behind.

You should read this book if you are even considering the idea of working from home. It gives you suggestions for you to pass along to your boss, suggestions to convince him to let you do it. More and more businesses are letting people work at home because they are more productive. If you are the type who works all day without taking a lot of breaks for coffee, communicating with those around you, then working at home is good (if you don't become a regular workaholic). Usually work at home people get paid less, but then the office benefits too by not having to provide space for you. Some people think they could work better from home but probably in reality couldn't because they would get distracted easily...by kids, pets, people calling, soap opera time, etc. You need to consider everything before taking this big step. Some people don't like being cut off from their co-workers either and don't find that out until they have taken the big step. The book suggests that you take it slower in the beginning by working part time at home and part time at the office. Also that if you have a problem getting started in the mornings at home, that you dress as if going to work, set a time to begin and end and treat it as a regular day at the office. Also people working at home don't get promoted as much as the ones at the office. That is something to think about if you are trying to climb the ladder to a better position. The book covers about every question you could come up with and you would benefit from reading it before you take the "plunge". Sure, you would save on gas, see your family more, work at your own speed, but can you do it alone without the support of your co-workers? It is well written and easy to read and more in depth than I thought it would be. A great little book.

There are four primary audiences for this book: *) Employees that would like to telecommute to a job they currently have *) Employers that are considering or will be asked to consider allowing their employees to telecommute *) People who would like to work out of their home on a free-lance basis *) People who are currently working at home All four of these groups will be well served by reading this book, although the primary focus is on the employee side. Telecommuting is something that has an enormous initial appeal; the idea that you can work while never leaving your home has many obvious advantages to both employer and employee. However, like so many solutions with obvious benefits, there are many subtle and sometimes considerable downsides. As someone who "dropped out" to work independently years ago, dropped back in to work full-time and now has "dropped out" again, I can attest that it is not as easy as it first appears. You must be extremely disciplined and realistic. Everyone, including myself, who has made the work-at-home decision worked harder while at home than they did while being employed. That is above the time saved by not leaving the house to commute to work. To succeed in this area, you have to have the right kind of work, right mentality and occasional nerves of steel when the work seems to dry up. Even after over a decade of successfully working out of my home, seven full-time and three part-time, and having read other books about how to do it right, I still learned valuable information from reading this book. And that is the highest compliment I can give it.

...when I was writing my own proposal to work from home. Many of the suggestions and tips in the book are spot on! Like most NOLO publications, the advice and suggestions that they give are written in a very concise and easy to follow manner. They have chapters on how to write a proposal to work from home. Many of the things that I did in my proposal were the same suggestions but there were also some suggestions that I didn't add that were just as helpful. Another great chapter is the section on working from home as a freelancer with suggestions on the kinds of jobs that you can do as well as a very useful section on how to avoid those work from home scams! Another useful part of the book is that they tell you where to go if you need numbers and statistics to back up your arguments. They list various sources and web sites that you can consult for information, and there's even a sample proposal so you have a guide for fashioning your own. There are also practical tips on how to be more productive, things you can do to make working from home more fun, and other useful ideas. If you're looking to work from home or already are, you will certainly find this book useful.