Now that 2010′s in full effect and the economy’s rumored to be on the rebound and people are watching “Hoarders” and throwing out the old projects, sweaters and “floaters” from decades past, I’m seeing more and more articles about businesses you can start at home. Working at home, for many, is great. Minimizes travel costs and time, gets people closer to their families, saves on eating out — it’s even an official way to “go green.” Not to mention the fact that you don’t have to pay Common Area Maintenance fees for non-existent commercial building lobby in your 2-flat walk-up. You can even get back into shape — I did my most running ever when I was working from home 90% of the time. You do, however, need to have the type of personality that allows you to say focused. Or the type of job that might not involve much external growth. And working at home is not for procrastinators — i.e. creative types — and I wonder if working from home might be perfect for product-oriented jobs rather than service-oriented jobs. Running a massage therapy biz in your house is one thing, but speaking from experience, you might be way more productive if you’re working directly with clients and can be based in centralized brick and mortar. Everyone’s used to planning meetings at Starbucks, but some things really do require conference rooms and enough blank space to focus, ironically. I sometimes wonder why I’m so productive on planes — maybe because there’s literally nothing to do and nowhere to go? Bland offices can provide an odd zen-like quality, sometimes — a component not often achieved when at your kitchen table with your favorite movies and laundry and five new magazines down the hallway. After all, it’s good to get out into the world sometimes. In Japan’s “Lost Decade” (the ’90′s), out-of-work commuters started a trend called “Ghosting” where they’d literally hang out in public places and pretend to work on things that didn’t exist — because people don’t work at home, they work in the well-dressed presence of others. Some things are perfectly designed for DIY home office centralization. Others are not and one size does not fit all. In other words, don’t make client calls with the senior VP’s in your boxers. If you’re working from home, lock-up the guitar. Unless you’re Slash. If you’re Slash, stop reading this and call Axl and get everyone back together already.
