The Beautiful Pain of Working From Home: Full time Blogging

85 Comments read more
bio

I’m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

read more

Warning: This post was written by a 60-hour sleep deprived body and mind. Read with caution!

Working from home

I have been blogging for the past 10 years, and I work from a home office. In this post, I’m going to rant about problems which I have faced while working from home.

Note: This post was written back in 2013. 

I started my professional blogging career in April of 2009. There was no real significance to the specific date at all – it just happened to be the time in my life when I decided to quit my white-collar job and pursue blogging as a full-time profession.

Most people believe that one of the greatest advantages of blogging as a profession is the opportunity to work from home. You can work at any time of the day or night, and that too in your pajamas.

But working from home is not as great as everyone thinks it is!  If you work from home, you know what I’m talking about.

If you don’t, well – you’re about to find out.

In this post I will highlight some of the most significant challenges and issues I have faced while working from home. Your situation may be different from mine, but if you work from home you could relate to many of underlying issues.

Problems Working from Home

Problem with working from home

1. Work-work-work:

The type of work I do requires me to sit in front of a computer for at least 14 hours a day.  It is not mendetory but I enjoy it so much, that I lose track of time and space when I’m blogging.

Every month I have a minimum of four or five sleepless nights when I’m busy working all night.

In fact, this post is the outcome of another of those sleepless nights when my body and mind is exhausted.

When I think about the amount of work I need to accomplish every day, it is quite overwhelming.

Some of the regular blogging tasks that I do:

  • Writing blog posts
  • Editing guest posts
  • Replying to comments
  • Commenting on other blogs
  • Staying active on social media sites
  • Managing all of my blogs
  • Managing the SEO of my blog network
  • Planning and strategizing
  • Working on client sites
  • Working with freelancers
  • Communicating with clients
  • Communicating with advertisers
  • Replying to readers email
  • New learnings
  • Testing new softwares and apps
  • Trying new WordPress plugins
  • Managing finances

And many more..

To be honest, despite my sleepless nights, I rarely achieve 60% of my total work goals for any given day. By the end of the day, my mind and body will not allow me to accomplish more, because they need rest.

Update 2019: I have failrly grown significantly from 2013 and have learned a lot of tricks that helps me manage my time effectively. Infact, now I could accomplish atleast 90% of my weekly goals which is a new achievement for me.

2. Social life screwed:

One of the biggest problems I have faced while working from home is the negative impact on my social-life. There are many reasons for this, including differences that exist between people who work from an outside office and people who work from home.

People who work outside of the home have a different lifestyle, and they usually come into contact with many people throughout the day.

On the other hand, people like me who work from home spend a lot of time at home and do not have the same opportunities to meet people.

I can actually count how the number of people I have met in the past month. I may communicate with hundreds or even thousands of people online or over the phone, but I rarely meet more than 5 people in person. (I’m not sure whether to blame my work or my intovert nature for this, but most likely it is a bit of both.)

In addition to the work I have to accomplish daily, there are many people who have expectations of me which need to be met. The readers of my blog expect new, high-quality content every day. People who work with me expect direction and guidance to do their work.

My parents expect me to give them more time, and even my body expects rest from me! The list goes on and on.

When I started my blogging career, I had few expectations or demands to meet. There once was a time when I would work only on weekdays, and on weekends I would go out and socialize.

But in the past three years many things have changed. I frequently find myself working on a Saturday night when most people are enjoying the company of their friends and loved ones.

Additionally, I have been living away from home for the past nine years, so my time to connect with family is limited by distance as well.

3. Frustration, frustration and more frustration: 

Working from home and frustration come as a package deal. I never used to feel this way, but in the past couple of months I have felt the pressure building inside of me.

I miss meeting and hanging out with people. (I’m referring to real, face-to-face meetings here – not my online friends.)

It has been around 15 days since I returned from a conference, and I have left my flat only three times. I have seen only five or six faces, and I’ve attended one lousy jazz concert at the Hard Rock Cafe (which only added more to my frustration!)

Imagine yourself being house-bound for almost 15 days, and then you go out. You feel like you’re in a different world.

When I go out after having been confined for a long period of time, I feel alienated and awkward.  Meeting my friends after that is like an antidote has been given to me just as I was about to die!

4. Setting targets and achieving them:

I’m quite a planner and when it comes to work, I prefer doing it strategically. When you work from home independently however, no matter how much planning you do and no matter how focused and passionate you are, in time you can lose that energy and fall into the trenches of boredom.

I do have about ten plans that I am working to execute, and every month I seem to add another three or four to the list.  The only thing I am lacking in terms of the execution of these plans is TIME.

I even have interview offers from some big names like Fosters and a couple of magazines, but I simply cannot find the time to finish the interviews.

5. Feelings and emotions:

Back in my college days, I used to be that guy who can find happiness in a river of sorrow. None of my friends ever saw me sad or discouraged. I loved everyone around me.  I was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.

These days, however, I can feel those joyous emotions falling away. Working 24*7 in front of a laptop is making me feel robotic. I feel detached from my own family and my close friends. I pray that I can work this out soon, or I fear my life will become “a journey of a workaholic”. 🙂

6. Office vs Home:

I have set up a small office in my home which is good enough for 4-5 people, but I have been considering moving to my own office. I was talking with my friend Ankit who is doing work similar to mine, and he moved to his own office last year. So I called him to learn about his experience with his own office, and here are some of his thoughts in his own words:

When I moved to the office, for the first few months I used to reach the office in time, made everything perfect, completed work on time and everything was smooth. Probably I enjoyed working from office after 3 years of working from home. Though later on, my office arrival time shifted to 2 P.M from 10 A.M.  And later on it turned out to be 3-4 days I go to office, else I would work from home.

Every year, twice I have to bribe the Police-walah, that comes as a complementary when you start your own office. I have to maintain the office and make sure everything is alright, maintain the team and meetings and work.

Initially you would enjoy it, but later on it will add to your frustration. Luckily my girlfriend is my partner, and she is a great manager.  However, the running cost of my office is around $1300/month. If you’re asking for my suggestion: Work from home, and instead of investing in an office, hire quality people and let them work for you. Maybe like “work from home” or maybe you can let 2-3 guys come to your place to work.

Takeaway: There is always a girl behind every successful man! 😉

So, this put me into a dilemma of office vs. no office. His point was quite sensible, which is why it is always good to consult with people who have personal experience, as they are often able to guide us well.

So here I was – I wanted to start an office, but the nature of my work (blogging, blogging and more blogging) doesn’t necessarily require an on-site team. Bloggers are creative people who are not inclined to be bound to a 9-7 job, (otherwise it would be more like I’m running a newspaper agency)!

At this point I remain unsure as to whether I need to move to an office or simply buy a plot, build a house and make an office with a separate entry on the same premises.

But again, this will require lots of money, and to make lots of money you need to work more, and in order to work more you need to have time, and time is one thing that remains elusive. I never have enough of it!

I can feel that I am stressing myself now, and since that tends to lead to negative productivity, I will take a step back and continue this thought process at another time!  

So for now…Adios!!

What are some of the issues you face when working from home?

Feel free to share your thoughts!

85 comments on “The Beautiful Pain of Working From Home: Full time Blogging

  1. Awesome article Harsh…. Even i believe home would be much better place compared to own office…. 🙂
    Thanks for sharing it with us 🙂

    1. Pradeep you missed out the important take away..Home is good but only when you are maintaining the difference between professional and personal life. One major problem which you will face is, Working from home mix your personal and professional life and that’s when problem comes in. !
      So even if you considering Home as your hub, it’s better be at the corner of your house where no one can disturb you and you can set things according to your wish and requirements. Make sure you have enough entertainment stuff to keep you happy. One thing which actually works for me to increase my productivity is Music….

      1. I really agree with the thing that working from home mixes the personal and professional life…and about having a working hub at your home I have totally different imagination about that….”It should not be in the but in the House 😛 ” that’s little tricky to understand….I hope you got my point about the working place where exactly it should be if you are working from home…. 🙂

      2. You caught the point so correctly! Well, I’m an aspiring blogger…And, this is where exactly I’ve been stuck since quite LONG…I have left job, staying at home…But just can’t (!) focuss as clashing with home-personal-social life…Even I wonder Some times..Was office work better?! No, I can’t be fixed in 9 to 5 either. 🙁

      3. In all this I felt same but obviously you are my guru, so I start from 2016 and its been 3 years working from home

        Your partner is supportive that’s why you manage very well.

  2. Rightly said Harsh…. We hv made our home – our workplace itself and its very important for us start distinguishing between the two…

    maybe have some fixed routine and dedicated time slots for work and other social activities and maybe some play time as well…

  3. I can’t explain my mom anything..she would never understand…..because of my online career I lost many friends and lately i have seen myself going to clubs and pubs and standing alone……acting weird…..people are thinking something has gone wrong with my head…..i turned into an abnormal……Hey Harsh how to solve this issue man…..:(

  4. well well well…. harsh.. probably u remember me… I m working from home for last 3.5years now. One way i m in benefit is as most indian/pakistani families i m staying with my family and we have our own house… in our 1kanal house i have converted drawing room into my office which is big enough to have 10-15 workstations. At the moment i have 6 employees working for me. And like your employees my employees also always tell me that we should move to an office but i will do it at my ease and comfort when i can make sure that running cost for an office is affordable. Agree with you on working continues and no social life. my fiancee (going to get marry in november 2011 and its an arrange marriage) and i whenever talk about our love life in past my answer is always that i never have enough time to get social with anyone and so never had any girlfriend, However, had very good friends in college and university life and one of them is my partner in business at the moment as well but with other friends i dont have time to meet anyone so we just talk on phone and hang around some time and thats it… so instead of hanging with friends alot i just hang out with my family mostly. I had the same feeling as you have after working 2years from home and the feeling stayed for many months. But feeling started to go away when i started to realize that i can timetabled everything. Now i have enough time for spending with family, can do work properly on daily basis, enough time for my fiancee and enough time for friends as well…. And also i can go out in office time and handle my finances and manage my clients….. I know its hard but this is where my future lies now i can’t stop blogging an try to find some job to get social. I need to grow my blogging career and expand it enough to make a full company on face of IT industry…. So buck up buddy…. timetabled your stuff and keep going….. you have the potential and i always give your example to new bloggers i meet and talk. RESPECT for you man… 🙂 Do not Loose it……

    1. Hey Azulfi
      Man I do remember you and yah we talked a lot over chat years back. It’s been long that we have spoken but yes, I do remember you. 🙂
      The good thing here is I know my issues and I know the solution. The only thing is streamlining it. One major issue is getting more people to work and managing them. I have been thinking about Office for a long time, but I guess Office is something which is not going to happen for next 9-12 months. Or it will eventually happen only if it’s really required. I guess you and me are on the same boat, or should I say you been to stage where I’ m right now.
      I’m gonna keep myself busy with some social activities from now on, basically idea is to go out and meet people..!!
      Coz it may be in my head as I stayed inside the house for long and didn’t socialize much lately..!! And that’s the reason I got into writers block situation. I’m going to start slowly but in the right direction. Because if a blogger loses it’s attitude, it’s the end of the world.
      I have been meaning to write this post for long, specially for those budding bloggers who wanted to start with their career in professional blogging. Because most of the time we talk about pros of blogging: Money, Freedom and being your own boss. But in the end we miss out some issues like this which is talked but we usually don’t pay attention.
      One thing which I missed out from my point in the past is being social in true sense. I remember when I use to go out a lot, my head was full of ideas and for now it’s saturated.
      I guess, it’s just a phase and it will go eventually once I sort out everything and limit myself to certain things which I’m good at. More over, I will take away managing time tip from you and I will be doing the same.
      Thanks for your comment and good to see you around… . 🙂

      1. Newbie bloggers would never understand your point unless they achieve something similar…
        With more power and authority comes more responsibility…
        Anyways, When you do prefer to work more ? During daytime or night ? Which is your more productive hours ? Well, to add to your confusion and misery (wicked smile), if you’re like me and many others whose most productive hours are often during night, just wonder what will happen when you get married ?
        The main current trend or timetaking part of a blogger’s life is information grasping i.e. reading.. I spend most of my time reading interesting stuff online (Managing or cutting this time would help more really..)
        Further, integration of blogger life with socialibility can be achieved. We (Indians) are less into video blogging stuff. You may go for video blogging as well. Further, attending bloggers meet and visiting various launch events may further help in socialising.. Taking blogging to a journalist like style i.e. visiting shops to feature their products or for product reviews would add more fuel to socialising experience.. I guess you understand what i m trying to say!

  5. So True 🙁
    The same life comes when you are into college and you are blogging .. 🙁

    People Think ‘WE’ are a dude but we know what it takes to be one.. handling so many jobs.. getting frustrated.. tensed.. bored.. and a lot more..

    Would simply say you extorted my feelings 😛

    Happy Life Mate.. Hope you be relived from also tensions 😀

    1. Sanjit
      One thing which I must tell you from my experience: IN college days don’t stress too much on Blogging. It’s better to take out an hr or two from daily to Blogging and online work and stick with your friends. This is the time when you will have complete evolution of yours and you will be seeing world from a different perspective. This is a phase to learn, so try to be more social, active in co-curricular activities, because after years such things are going to be really helpful. I used to be super active on many stuff in my school and college days, and till now all those experiences are very handy for me. If you miss out these days, that’s one thing which you can never going to get back.

      1. Harsh sir,
        I am a student of engineering and currently entered in my 2nd year. I am agree with you views. But I think this is the right time to make our career bcoz every one want to enjoy these college days but its also true that you have to lose something to achieve something. So we can get ourselves a step ahead then others if we work at this age to fulfill our & our parents dreams and after reading your experience I am so much motivated to work work and work.
        Thank you so much sir for this support.

  6. Well, There is a bigger problem if you have habit of working from Home and you start an office. I shared with you, and I am sure you took it seriously.

    Sometimes I also gets frustrate as even though we earn better than normal salaries people, we are our own boss and M sure I don’t need to give more benefits but but but.. there are hell lot of things which you don’t like
    For example, you cant take leave, even if you are travelling, attending some parties you always have something running in your mind about work.
    Normally even in worst case people do 10-12 Hours job, in our case we work for min. 12 hours i guess, normally I work for 14-18 hours a day and which frustrate me.
    We have to work, we need to search our work, at the same time communicate with employees, clients and many more.

    Something I gets frustrate and start thinking about something else but I am made for it and love to work as an Entrepreneur.

    Cheers!!

  7. Hey Harsh what should you tell me then…i dropped out of college and now only work online…..although I earn but not from blogging itself…..dnt knw wahts wrong…..so the motivation is fading away…..but need to keep on earning from internet marketing and SEO works man…..cause we all gotta survive….right…..If i stop the money i am earning I am going to be bombarded by relatives with all sorts of taunting questions…….I HATE RELATIVESSS…..reallly mannn life is sooo complicated…

  8. Hey nice article budyy just loved it i think me too should start blogging, i guess even if i dont have as many people like you, but reading your blogs gives me intense happines n also help me change my mind!! 🙂
    ‘ll be waiting for your reply !!

  9. Well, I feel same eeh, I think I’m turning myself into Antisocial 🙁 .. I am also active blogger from sept 2009, I was not having any knowledge even never ever heard about WP .. Now I am having 5 sites and 15 are on the way of development, one of my main problem is my parents they always think that it is just a waste of time, they always encourage me to join Family business (that I personally don’t like, it’s kinda Textile business with 150 employes)..I hope some day i will make enough to prove myself 🙂

  10. u seem to knw ur problems n even the solution to them..so dnt just sit there…execute…then share with us..if there is any changes in ur life…

  11. Great post Harsh, so blogging isn’t all poolside pina coladas and laptop on a tropical island after all. Bloggers like John Chow and a few others give the wrong annotations sometimes about blogging. Yeah, make lots of money and have all the free time in the world, but the truth of the matter is it doesn’t work like that, you have all the free time to work your fingers down to the bone and put your health at risk is what it should say on the tin! Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging and I know it takes a hell of a lot of work; you’re in a situation where you need to be at the forefront of your audience 24/7. But I would never sacrifice my social life and certainly not my girlfriend for a blogging career, life is too short, you need ballance. Harsh, thanks for sharing your experience and I hope others learn from this well.

  12. @saurabh a girlfriend of a blogger must also understand that his bf is not a 9-5 goer …..and the understanding should always be there.

  13. Your post really admires ,inspires but also teach time management as well as a good planner….Blogging is really very tuff work, and at your stage its really very tuff to manage all the things in one day, you even think that why there is only 24 hours in a day,why not more than that…

  14. Hi Harsh,

    Mate I am UK currenlty and in the office right now. Still, I read the whole article which took me about 20 odd minutes to read… and believe me I read it word-by-word 🙂 … I had people coming to my desk for some work but I was reading something which kept me into it… 😉 And I am writing this comment as well from Office.. Today is a holiday in India.. so my Offshore team is not in .. so I have some time 😀

    If you remember, I have mentioned to you earlier as well, I have been following you since June 2009 when I came across SML for the first time and since then, I read your techy updates or not, but I always read your posts where you write about your personal experiences and advice 🙂

    You have written another great honest article and I really see the hardwork and time you have put into your online career and it has paid back… Believe me saying, there a lot of people inspired by your work.. me being one of them.. I still wonder when I would leave my job.. you did it long back… 😉

    And you are right, in blogging it is work all the time and sometimes you have spent hours and think that it has done no good as results in the online world come out a bit late 🙂 Don’t be depressed mate.. as you mentioned in your comment as well, you know what the problem is and you know the solution… start working on it.. 🙂 If you think, you will do it.. have a balance for all things.. giev time to your family… you have some things in place now which are on automatic process now.. (there are problems in maintaining them) I am referring to your online identity and blogs like CAG, SML which have employees working for you and you can afford to have some time for yourself… have one day off I would suggest.. 🙂

    And, the mention you made about your 5 year long relation, sorry to know that… but relations need time mate… I myself am in a 7 year long relation.. got engaged last month.. you mite have seen pics on FB :)… a very recent example of something same happening (me giving importance to blogging than the relation) with me is the iPhone keynote that happened on 4th… I kept on ignoring her calls cos I had to blog about the event as soon as possible.. This paid back in the form that I had my site down for the first time… (m on shared hosting :P) but that felt really unimportant later on… cud be that I could have posted later and might be the blog wud not go down, but I could maintain a balance.. anyways I have less chance of her leaving as booking is done (engagement) 😉 but you understand what I mean….

    And, it is really nice to know that some big names in the magazines want to write about you… with the hieghts you have achieved, it is wonderful.. keep it up…

    And in the last, man.. cheer up.. you are doing awesome work.. start implementing your ideas… and keep it up… Cheers!! 🙂

    [When I am reading the last lines again, I feel like mailing these to myself and read.. cos I am the laziest person in the world and think a lot and do very less 😛 :P]

  15. Call me stupid but I thought I was the only one blogger going through this.I wont share any any of my details but you got to admit harsh, this work is in your hands, you can easily earn more than 50k a month working on just weekdays but isn’t it the greed for more that makes you and other bloggers like me, work the hell out of it.

    See we cant blame anything on anyone, it just that the path we have choosen is way more complicated than it seems, but than again not everyone in our country can start a business without putting anything.

    Going over to your second problem, socializing problem, what I’m thinking is open up a shop (again call me stupid), put a salesman to sell just mainstream mobiles, laptops and build your office alongside it. So that whenever you feel sloppy just go by your showroom and talk to people who are there to buy stuff, plus your showroom rent will surely be paid off by the gadgets you sell.

    But again that’s what I think…..

  16. Harsh your story is really so much interesting.
    But i liked “Girlfriend or work” section most.
    this section really similar to me. I am a newbie in the field of blogging and started blogging for the same reason. And now really inspired by you.
    Thank you so much for sharing these awesome experiences of your life.

  17. Hello Harsh, this post inspired me to comment something which I usually don’t do as I browse from mobile and there’s no auto filler for the tons of things which you ask me to fill up. Anyways, my story is similar to you. I hooked to b tech study as I thought it would be the best for me. The very first year I realised its not something which I would love as a career. I took on blogging and become a copy paster of gprs tricks. I now feel that I should write original stuff and planning to close the site down and begin afresh. Its true all of your problems all of them but they can be solved if you concentrate on one site and shut the others down. As per my view point the one site which has achieved the greatest success is shoutmeloud, kill the others. Socializing, meeting others, keeping in touch with family, making a gf etc can be achieved if you don’t take it on yourself very hard. After isn’t it what you always wanted. Work for sometime and enjoy life. That’s the reason why anyone starts blogging. Working within the vicinity of a home, writing something and getting paid for it. That’s a miraculous experience. Kicking the mnc job and the cruelty of the 9-5 job, meeting deadlines, apologising for the mistakes your boss made, freedom from taking the shit those assholes give you, all of it. Thats what blogging represents to me. You have crucified the freedom in the pursuit of money. Seriously you don’t need it all, how much would that mnc job give you take 50% more of that and enjoy your life. You don’t have to be dancing around the expectations of everyone coz the day you stop writing none of us not even me is going to care. That’s life.

  18. Haha bro. That’s complete my story. I left blogging forever..and planning a career in computer science. Wish would get good exams in boards,

    – Ankit

  19. Really Harsh you have explained every bloggers story in very crafted words !! I will have to agree that once you come into blogging you are totally isolated from the real human being.

    When I was in job i had the same feeling that I will work for my own and not have any boss, but these days I am really so much fed up that i have started hating computer because sitting all the day with computer is not only making me isolated from my real friends but I am feeling some type of totally computer equipped person.

    Playing all the day to prove our-self in front of Google is the only JOB left for us and day and night we are working on it.

    Your wonderful article really helped me to realized the person inside me.

  20. Hello Harsh!
    You wrote yet another big post. Every blogger who plans to make blogging as his career must read this post to understand the hardships behind blogging. We need to work harder and harder to make some success. People thinks, oh blogging is like shit its so easy but they will never know the issues.

  21. Hello Harsh,

    This was a very interesting post and inspiring for me as I want to be a Freelancer someday. You are right, being work-alcoholic makes you less creative and productive and even you hardly get to mingle with your Social Life. But since you’ve realized as you’ve ranted, Have you ever tried from your side to set everything OK ? It’s bit hard to be a Freelancer here in a country of Outsourcing Companies with Cheap Labor Pay. I’m a 3rd Year Engineering student, I could understand and even feel some part of it. I’ve seen a lot of friends and batch-mates of mine, who either run for Success or for Girls, but getting both is DAMN tougher. Some achieve for any reason, but they could brag about it. While others keep working their asses off. You know a lot of tensions come up and hover in my mind, about studies, placements and my current as well as my future life. But in the end, I just keep motivating myself with all those things I’ve learned so far.

    At the end of the day, we can’t deny the FACT that there’s only 24 hours a day. The thing that all we need is a proper management of TIME with all the flavors of hard-work, passion, dedication and leisure. Plus, some silence and patience for a while to enjoy the days of struggle. 😉

    Regards,
    Ashish Bardhan

  22. Harsh, dude i liked that social part -gf left, same situation i faced before few months 🙁

    But all of this, we love what we do -blogging !

  23. Same dilemma with me. Office vs Home.
    But there are more different hurdles in my life to move an step ahead, like family problems. They don’t want to me choose blogging as a career and asks me what will they tell to society whether what I do. There is no respect for this job etc etc. shit. :/

    And some of my problems are similar to u like social life, feeling emotion, etc.

    !!Thats Life!!

  24. I can actually feel your pain.. Freelancing has its own advantages and like everything comes for a price even this will come with set of disadvantages and the worst part which I have observed in me is laziness.. it not only ruins your productivity but ruins the actual enthusiasm that u have when you start the work..

  25. Dude,

    After reading this article, i seriously feel you should sleep now.. Enough man, you are loosing yourself. Put yourself a rule saying, “I Strictly dont touch my laptop in weekends” After all. why are we working so hard? Its for our own life right? Then why are we not living it? People say Harsh is great, he is awesome and he is this and that,.. ah comon! even he is a human being and he has a life..And people, Stop expecting more from bloggers and other experts in this field..

    I hope you enjoy you life atleast 48hrs in a week.. I can see myself in your article man.. But its just that i had put a restriction of not working on saturday and sunday 😀

  26. I have been blogging for the past 6 months and I can tell I have many sleepless nights.. I am an Engineering Student. And Man does it get painful with all the blogging. You are like trying to sleep, You are no shape to even open your eyes still, in your mind. Its blog, blog,blog. My most recent stint was 4 days long.. and I slept after 4 days. In those 4 days.. I slept for 2 hours max. And social life is total screwed up. My friends call me from other hostels and I tell them am busy.!

  27. I can relate to this. I got an office two years ago but now I see it as a waste of money cuz I hardly go anymore and worse yet, I don’t wanna go anymore. It’s true this sort of work we do mess up our social life but I’m trying so hard to keep a balance, adding more to the frustration.

    Tried to spend some quality time with my girl for two days (no internet, no calls) and came back with a huge amount of things I gotta do… comments, emails, guest articles, fb messages… I’m still on it and I don’t even know how to reply some mails cuz the brain is fucked up already.

  28. I do agree on many points. I am not full time blogger but as Entrepreneur, I started same way from Home and then moved to office, increase head count and so on.

    When I was working from Home I was facing many issues listed from above. One rule I made for me that I used pretend my self as I am working from office and used manage my timings like that. This habit helped me a lot for balancing life.

  29. hahahahaha Nice article, Reminds me of my working from days 😀 , Best part of work from home is you can work according to you, but Blogging from home is i think worst thing, many times my blog comes to my dreams :D, My gf abuses my blog alot

  30. hey harsh.!!
    this article really changed my mind-set about working from home. working from home really screwed the social life.

  31. Demotivation is the biggest enemy when you’re working from home, for some time it may all seem to be going fine but if things aren’t getting any better people get demotivated and stop doing things even if they’re going in the right direction that is the reason most of the bloggers quit after some time.

    People need others support to make things right and keep them motivated into the work..!

  32. Very honest article. If you are a professional blogger and your business is running fast then you can’t just keep it continue from home. Definitely you need an office and a team who take your place.
    I bet most of the top bloggers you mention in your last info-graphic “Indian Professional Bloggers” have their own office.
    I like this line most, ” for an office you will require lots of money and to make lots of money, you need to work more and in order to work more, you need to have time and that’s one thing which I don’t have.” Ohh! this is the rare issue…
    But i hope, once you start then everything is scheduled.
    Well Harsh.. Thanks again and take care of yourself. We don’t want to lose our best blogger 😉

    1. @Satish
      In last one year, I have worked a lot on fixing every problem by handling it individually, and now most of these problems have been taken care of. I have a small home office, and next month I’m shifting to a bigger place where I will be setting up a bigger home office. Thanks for your concern and all I can say “Now I’m living it” 🙂

  33. This happens with all the people who work from home. Apart from these, bloggers also face a lot of health problems because they do very little physical exercise and they take a lot of mental stress.

  34. Yeah it really annoying some people think that blogger live the life like kings but not things are really opposite as they have to work more than regular 9 to 5 jobs

  35. Harsh,

    I am newbie blogger and m doing it along with my job…I had started blogging by getting inspired when one of my friend told me about your website.
    Now after reading ur experience and some of the comments..just want to share that m doing job more than 5.8 years now And its not like 9-5.. Initial 1-2 years might it seems like that but once you started to get responsibilities along with targets then it really the same what you hv shared…
    2 hrs in travel..11-12 hrs in office.. too much pressure…
    So at the end I can only say its not abt work from home or from office..its about how we maintain our work-life balance…just don’t expect too much from ourself..what we have earned and the life which we are living is might dream of others.
    Keep it up bro. Ur the inspiration for lot of bloggers like us and ur doing it very well!!
    You can plan for short vacation to enjoy with ur friends n family by dropping mail at admin[at]shoutmeloud[com] 🙂

  36. Working on home not so easy task harsh. I am live in rural area. But work 8 to 9 hours in my home. But my other work disturb my blogging. So it’s a hard task.

  37. Hi Harsh
    I just started professional blogging and I don’t know where it will take me. Earlier I used Blogspot, you know, just like a newbie . Now I use WordPress but I hate the fact that it doesn’t support Custom Post Types. But we have the advantage of plugins.
    I’m a 4th year computer science student and companies will soon visit my campus , and I have no idea what to do next ?
    Job vs Full Time Blogging
    I read your article carefully and with ‘caution’ as you mentioned.
    As a new blogger and with a little bit new vision, I will recommend you adding Instagram (for shoutmeloud) effectively to your social media marketing. I know you are on Instagram with @denharsh and I just followed you with my @digitalperiod account.
    Good luck

  38. Hello Harsh I am a consistent follower of your site shoutmeloud apart from that I flipped through the above blog really sounds interesting and I too have same opinion.

    1. Yah Rashmi..That’s why finding the perfect balance between work & life is important..It’s been 3 years I have written this post & I guess now I’m close to finding that balance. The only challenge or I say problem is, this balance can never be consistent due to unspecified requirement of our time & energy for work which we all do.

  39. Thanks Harsh, for such a good and inspiring blog. I wish I can be a good blogger like you,awesome in your case, but at this moment I am new to blogging even not started but seek help from you.

    Thanks again.

  40. You nailed It with this post-Harsh.

    It seems like the solitude through which you are going is part of every successful person’s life.

    The Quote, “It’s lonely at the top” seems true.

    I have seen Brain Clark of Copyblogger building the blog singlehandedly & then finding and recruiting fellows who are talented & converting it into a company.

    I think it’s high time you must distribute your responsibilities.

    I made Custom ebook cover designs for your Affiliate book & emailed you but I lost the patience & got disappointed to see no reply from you.

    But now I understand what a busy schedule you have & missing an email in the sea of emails is quite easy.

    Thanks for being true & inspiring us.

  41. Thanks Harsh, for such a good and inspiring blog post now and future days.

    Yes Harsh Agrawal, I agree home will be home only. For work office is better than home work.

    Thanks Harsh!!

  42. You have said a lot about tired and blogging. You Will have ! Because you are working at multiple blogs simultaneously. I just scrolled down and found you have 5 more blogs to manage.

    You are doing the work of Five persons. This will definitely lead to a decrease in productivity. And also sleepless nights not good for your health . This will affect you in the long run.

    Decreasing your workload will obviously reduce your stress. This will be a better solution. You will also find some quality time.

  43. Wow, Such coincident. My name is Ankit and I moved to office last year. And now having similar thoughts that your friend Ankit is having..

    Such small world.

    1. and to add to it, I have my girlfriend as a partner.. I sent this link to one of my friend and he thought ‘Ankit’ you are referring to is me 😀

  44. Hello Harsh,

    Your post provides great reasoning about blogging from home.

    I know how you feel since I blog from home too. And I had a social life before retiring from consulting. But still, when I was a consultant, I was partly working from home in my lab and then, I visited my clients. At the time, I believed that I had almost no social life. Blogging from home is worse, I see nobody, except my two cats and my wife.

    You have several websites to manage. I already knew about ShoutmeLoud and ShoutmeTech. In your footer, I’m counting five additional sites. How many sites total do you have?

    Before reading your article, I thought I was the only one with a big Todo list. I don’t feel alone anymore. And I’m running only two sites.

    I’m pretty sure you will find a way to relieve yourself fro, some of that workload.

    Off to Tweet this post now.

  45. I completely agree with you Harsh..i have started blogging a month ago and i feel the pressure that its really very frustrating and boring that i am not able to give time to my friends.

    1. But, that’s not right. Blogging with Frustration will not deliver your full performance.To avoid this, you can reduce your number of posts per week, and make a small limit as your standard every week. This will give you enough time for other activities.

  46. Harsh,

    My career job eats up a lot of my time and I find myself reading work emails from my phone and even I’ve downloaded Microsoft office apps as in Excel so I can read reports, create them from my phone.

    Then I login to my blog in which I have a passion for and planning on taking it to a new level soon. I hired a part time editor yesterday. That was a hard job to do for me as I thought I asked to many questions but I have to trust that person when I am at work to handle the blog stuff.

    I work 3rd shift now and since I have off Friday and Saturday night. I have not left my house in 2 days other then to walk across the street to buy cigs and drive 1 mile down the road to buy food. I’ve been on the blog the whole time and experimenting.

    I’ve stayed up for 48 hours on more then one occasion and have to validate reason why I did it. Even seeing my neighbor at the apartment mailbox area, I feel strange because I was inside for so long or was up for 48 hours and look like hell.

  47. harsh , i am in class 11 , please help me in starting a blog ….. i want to take blogging as a carrer . in todays date i am just having a fb page . help me .

  48. Wow… such a different article … feels like I am talking to myself … well written bro thrugh this article I understood one thing and that is all bloggers are same… feel frustrated one or the other time due to work from home …

  49. Dear sir, you explained everything that a blogger faced. I also didn’t sleep while I was working for my site’s android app. But that time was amazing to do something different. Blogging is a passion and there is no worry about sleeping or working on Pc. Thank you sir.

  50. Loved this post. Thanks for sharing your experiances and advice. As a work at home I can relate to most of this. Also there are some that works differently for me and thats fine cause we each have different ways to manage our lives.

  51. Yes! I can relate to this blog.

    Even I work from home.

    Another thing which distracts me while working from home is ‘Post Lunch Hours.’
    Like, seriously, it’s tough to work after having lunch. Mainly because there is no one to stop you.

    70% of times I ended up on my bed relaxing. LOL

    Anyway, thanks, Harsh bhai for this blog. At least I’m not the only one facing these problems.

    -Wannabe Harsh Agrawal

  52. Hi harash,

    Home is where our story begins…”

    “Home is the starting place of love, hope and dreams.”

    “The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and it feels even better to come back.”

    “Home is where love resides, memories are created, friends always belong, and laughter never ends.”

    “A house is made of bricks and beams. A home is made of hopes and dreams.”

    “Home is not a place…it’s a feeling.”

    I really miss my home….leaving in canada

  53. Hello sir, I recently started blogging and my mom is already complaining about me being sitting in front of the screen all the time. I feel so much excited to work on my blog that i don’t even want to sleep, but after some time the body itself starts giving signals and that’s when i realise the time.
    But at the end of the day, I fill satisfaction by doing all this.

  54. I really agree with the thing that working from home mixes the personal and professional life…and about having a working hub at your home I have totally different imagination about that….”It should not be in the but in the House 😛 ” that’s little tricky to understand….I hope you got my point about the working place where exactly it should be if you are working from home…. 🙂

    1. I liked the way you connect with people who like to be blogger. You explained well so even I feel that we shouldn’t mix both office and home together.

  55. 2 days back found a post shared by Syed Balkhi (Wpbeginner) giving guide lines of working from home. He said to treat home as office, fixed time for work, entertainment and all other activities. He said about using a head set while working to avoid distractions. Now found your this post on linkedin. Two entrepreneurs, experts in wordpress. Which post should follow? lol. No related post found from Neil yet. I work from home and do everything as you mentioned. No time limit. But these days no sleepless work. I self learn and doing, no earning also. So nothing much to worry. This work is just to learn and to get engaged in retired life.

    This theme is very attractive. What theme is this?

    Another thing, you are still using Social warfare. No problem in using this?

  56. Rightly said Harsh…. We hv made our home – our workplace itself and its very important for us start distinguishing between the two…

    maybe have some fixed routine and dedicated time slots for work and other social activities and maybe some play time as well…

Leave a Reply to Prashant kumar Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *