Issues faced by homeworkers

If you work from home, you're bound to encounter problems of one sort or another.  Working from home as a programmer has its good points and bad points.  I’m not sure if it is a lifestyle that would suit everyone however.  Care must be taken to separate work from your personal life, particularly if you are in a relationship.

I started working from home about 4 years ago.  A friend had a business idea and needed me to join him to develop some computer programs.  The programs were to provide premium rate text messages...  initially as a way to pay to download porn, but then expanded to all sorts of "adult" content.  Everything seemed fine in the beginning and there were no serious problems with either my relationship or my health.

Since it was my business I had the motivation to put in as much time as possible.  I tended to work 12-hour days 6 days a week.  I think this is common to most business starts ups and may not be indicative of working at home.  I had no problem sitting in a comfortable chair with the TV on in the background working on my laptop.  My partner used to work fairly long shifts so I had the house to myself most of the time.  I never had the chance to get bored or distracted, as there was always so much to do.

It was very isolating working at home.  Working as a programmer can be very a very solitary activity at the best of times but I thing it was heightened both by the nature of the company...  (Basically there was me doing the I.T.  plus two sales people, period.)  My partner used to complain that she had no sense of space in the flat because I was always there and always working.  She felt that I didn’t contribute socially to our relationship and that was because I never had a break from work.  I wasn't earning a proper income at the time so that increased her sense of imbalance in the relationship.

Looking back I notice that I was always totally focused on working, there was always more work to do and no definite break between work time and personal time.  Draw your own conclusions from this, my experience of working from home.