Once you decided to work from home, you have a choice. You can make a choice, whether to go on 3 different terms: freelance, part-time, or full-time.
Freelance by definition is someone who works for different companies at different times rather than being permanently employed by one company. In the case of a home-based online job, it’s mostly a project-based job which could last up to 3 months or more, or could also be a repeat project. Of course, you are your own boss here. You can work flexibly at any time for as long as you complete the project at the given time.
Part-time You can work as little or as much as you want to do tasks online. A part-time online job normally requires 4 hours a day, where you can also work flexibly at any time. However, there are employers/clients who would request you to work overlap their timezone for catching up, sometimes twice a week or require you to work on a specific time schedule mostly in favor of their timezone/s.
Working on the above terms sounds great and convenient to many but of course, it would require you to be great in time management and self-discipline. Procrastination is a big NO here. This is why I always go for a long-term home-based online job. FULL-TIME. Not that I have no self-discipline but working from home can be more stressful than working in an office set-up, especially when you are a MOM. There are times that you will need to finish house chores between, see piles of laundry which could be already exhausting to look at, and the likes. Something that I CAN DO later won’t work for me, or things will get delayed. I’m the type of person who always has to work on schedule, and as scheduled.
With a full-time job, my body and mind are conditioned to work on a specific time schedule. Also, if your salary is a part of your “making a living”, for me, I need to have a fixed one. Something that I can look forward to monthly. Something that I can allot to on a regular basis rather than thinking how much am I going to have in the next coming months if I work on project-based jobs.
At the moment, I work on a full-time schedule 8:30 am to 4:30PM Philippine time, and it’s almost the same as working in an office-setup, with a fixed time schedule, fixed bi-monthly salary and a team that I work with daily, with weekend days off. The only difference that it makes is that we get to work from home and not rush every morning to go to work or struggle from traffic jams. But, if we need to attend to personal and family activities or run errands, we are allowed to offset the hours that we missed for the day. Otherwise, filing a leave is always an option. Our company culture is understanding and considerate like that. And I’m so happy to be a part of it.
We are also given weekend days off, holiday breaks, PH holidays, paid annual and sick leaves. The best part is that we get to meet the boss every year and do workshops which I think is very important if you work virtually. It’s always good to meet the people behind those computers that would help everyone strengthen the working relationship.
Again, as I always say to aspirants, working from home may not be for everyone but you can always make it work. You will be mostly on your own though. If you are someone who prefers to be out of the house most of the time, then this set-up can be as boring as expected, or otherwise, you can always aim to be a digital nomad. But one thing for sure is, you can always make a great choice and see what fits and works for you.
