If you’re considering doing data entry jobs from home, you might be wondering what the benefits are over working in an office. Data entry can be done from nearly anywhere once you know the process and procedures you need to follow. While we’ve covered the benefits of working from home before, here are a few perks you might not have considered if you’re leaning toward becoming a freelancer or asking your employer if you can work from home.

Be Comfortable

Being comfortable is essential in jobs that require a lot of attention to detail and focusing on a computer screen. You might be hunched over a keyboard for hours straight doing data entry. In an office, this typically means you will be sitting in a standard chair, and might be reluctant to take breaks or get up and stretch.

Bringing in a pile of fluffy pillows, a back support, or even requesting a nice chair that will keep you from feeling every hour crawl by is rarely an option in offices. Even if you can request accommodations, you’ll likely have to fill out forms, get medical notes, or subject yourself to some unpleasant commentary about your “special chair.” At home, everything can be customized to suit you. If you need to spend so much time sitting, you really should be comfortable!

Be in Control

Sometimes offices can come with a lot of rules and regulations. If you like things a certain way or work best in a specific environment, offices can be a nightmare. I know plenty of people who have trouble focusing while staring at a messy pile of papers on their neighbors’ desk.

Open office plans can wreak havoc on your productivity and your focus, and you can’t help what other people are doing. Getting frustrated by everything from the temperature to the excessive amount of personal calls the coworker within earshot is making is pretty standard these days. Data entry from home can help you feel more in control of your environment. Managing your daily tasks can be much simpler when you aren’t constantly wondering if the desk near the air conditioner will free up someday soon.

You can build a space where you work best, and keep it that way. I’ve seen situations where someone’s organizational system was destroyed by a coworker wanting to “neaten things up.” While they meant well, we all work differently and what seems like random piles of documents to one person can actually be what someone else considers highly organized. Both people in that situation were frustrated, and working from home could have prevented the issue.

Side note: it’s usually just best not to touch another person’s desk without asking. That’s the conclusion we all came to after that incident.

Be Around

Annoyed because you’re always missing package deliveries? Tired of having to call of off work for a 10-minute maintenance visit? Working from home allows you to be available for these interruptions. However, remember that you are actually going to need to be working. If you are staying home to manage personal projects, then make sure your company isn’t paying for that time. Downloading a simple (and often free!) time-tracker app will help keep you from overcharging for work that isn’t actually getting done.

Be Able to Get Sick

This is a really important part of working from home. You might be asked by your office to stay home if you are “too sick.” I always wonder about this, because how sick is too sick? Once I was in an office that said if we felt like we were getting the flu we should stay home. While it was a well-intended policy, I wasn’t too sure if my sniffles were going to get me kicked out of a meeting.

Working from home means you don’t need to lose productivity just because you are sick. There are times when everyone is too sick to go into the office, but not too sick to work. A great example of this is if you’re dealing with recovering from a surgery or if you have a disability. Being able to have days where you aren’t feeling 100% but you still want to work is one of the biggest working from home benefits. Not to mention how nice it is to avoid the, “Are you sure you’re feeling ok?” or “You look awful,” comments from your coworkers.

Be Efficient

Some people just work better from home. The distractions that come with being in an office are numerous and varied. For example, once my city had a small earthquake. None of us were used to such an event, and we were all taken by surprise. While it’s human nature to discuss these things, we lost an hour or two of work time swapping stories about what we were doing and talking about how strange it was to feel the quake. Had we been working from home, we might have checked the news and/or texted a friend before getting back to work.

While that is an extreme example, it illustrates the point that when you get a few people together anything suddenly seems like a good excuse to lose productivity. If it’s just you, staying focused can be simpler.

Be Pet-Friendly

Keeping an animal stuck in the house all day while you’re at work can feel pretty cruel. Some people even install cameras so they can check in on their pets during the day. Working from home means you get to interact with your pets during the normal course of your day. While this probably will keep them happier, you may even notice your work improving as well. Animals are great at keeping their owners calm and happy, which is something everyone could use in their work day.

Be Economical

How many office lunches have you begrudgingly gone to, only to spend money on food you don’t actually want? Whether it’s because you forgot to pack something (or didn’t have time), or you typically eat out, the cost of eating lunch out adds up. Combine the lunch cost with the price of the occasional morning coffee that everyone tells you to skip if you want to save up, and you’re looking at a significant expense.

Instead of only getting lunch or coffee occasionally as a treat, working from home allows you to buy quality ingredients while still saving money. For the price of having my usual coffee twice a week at a shop, I’m able to buy a bag of coffee, a decent sugar option, and my absolute favorite caramel creamers. Yes, admittedly you lose out on a bit of the experience of going to the store and getting your drink. Still, when you look at the overall savings it’s pretty worth it!

The same goes for lunches out. Freelancing allows me to make 3 meals a day (ok, closer to 5 sometimes). While you might opt for the lunch special near your office, think about how much that costs compared to the groceries required to assemble the meal. You’re probably getting significantly overcharged, and you only get to eat it once. The trick to this is to allow yourself to buy the nicer ingredients so eating from home doesn’t feel like a chore. Getting what you like will probably still save you money, and be another great benefit of working from home.

Try it Out!

You’ll never know if working from home is for you until you test the waters. Data entry can seem much simpler if you can control your environment and find additional benefits. Getting even one day a week where you do data entry from your home will help change the way you work and possibly even relieve some of your stress.

Why do you love doing data entry from home? Anything that makes your days brighter and your job easier? Let us know in the comments below!