The NonBillable Hour

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To work at home -- or not?

From Arnie Herz’s Legal Sanity comes this link to an ABA Journal article titled, “Home Alone. Using Available Resources, Working at Home Can Pay Off,” that suggests that working at home is a viable alternative for some small firm practitioners.  However, this BBC News Article seems to point to an opposite conclusion.  According to a study quoted in the article:

Less than 50% of people who work from home are satisfied with their home office space, with a quarter of them forced to work in the kitchen, 37% in the spare room and 10% "hotdesking" it to anywhere they can find.  [In fact over] three-quarters of home workers have found themselves working in a cramped and cluttered space, and over 50% of those surveyed said they did not have enough room to work effectively.

What does this all mean?  Make sure the productivity gains you experience by losing your commute or gaining convenience are not offset by a bad work environment.  Just because something feels like it is more productive, does not make it so.