The Best Office on the Block

The Best Office on the Block

The joys and perils of working where you live

The phrase “cottage industry” is taking on new meaning. The ranks of the self-employed are swelling and they are choosing to work out of home offices. An astonishing 38 percent of all households, or 37 million, include a member performing income-generating work at home, according to Link Resources, a New York market-research firm. Many are refugees from corporate offices, either jettisoned during cutbacks or budding entrepreneurs dropping out to create their own jobs. They include consultants, freelancers, independent producers, contractors, and small-business operators of all kinds. All are attracted by the flexible hours, lower stress, and chance to be their own boss.

A successful home business can gross up to $100, 000 in the first year. Money magazine recently surveyed a group of experts, including Paul and Sarah Edwards, authors of the Best Home Business, to find the home-based business most likely to succeed. The winner: editorial and publishing, temporary-employment agencies, repair services, and video production.

Starting up a home business need not be expensive. Depending on the business you can expect to shell out from $500 to $50,000 or even more Often, part of the trick is to create the illusion that you're part of a much larger operation. Experts usually advise, for example, that you pony up for professionally designed and printed business cards, logos and letterheads. Plain stationary and computer-generated letterhead and business cards look second-rate. Never use your home phone line for business calls. Get a separate business line. Live answering services or voice mail is preferable to answering machines, which are preferable to an unattended phone. Im most parts of the country, home office workers can get office-like phone services for an extra $10 or so a month from the local phone company.

Night View from a hotel room in Jamaica. Photo by Elena.

You probably already own a fairly good personal computer if you are going into business for yourself, but will you also need a copier, a fax machine, a printer, or a scanner? One new option is a multipurpose machine, which will print, fax, copy and sometimes scan. Sales of these vesatile machines are taking off : 140,000 are sold every year and the number is expected to triple in the next few years. Hewlett-Packard's get good reviews.

The biggest complaint among home office workers is a sense of isolation. For the self-employed, one remedy is to join a networking group or to communicate online with other home workers. For telecommuters who feel out of touch with headquarters, experts suggest visiting your company as often as possible, calling frequently, or sending e-mail messages.

Another problem home workers confront is separating their work from their personal life. Home office gurus suggest using a separate room or partition to separate your office from your living space. Set specific work hours, even though they need not to be 9 to 5. Finally, just because you work at home doesn't mean you can also take care of the kids. Make child care arrangements.