Working From Home/Balancing Work and Life – One of my reasons for heading in this very direction was to be able to stay home to take care of my wife and mother-”steals my socks from the laundry”-in-law.

My home is to do this long enough to finish school so that I can return to a “real” job if need be.

For me, the biggest downside of pro-blogging is that so many people still find it difficult to accept it as a “real” job. I’m still being asked when I plan to “go back to work” or if I actually make any money from it – then there are the questions about what on earth I do all day, and whether I’m free to babysit/pop out for coffee/do other favours for people “seeing as I’m just sitting around at home all day”.

As Meredith says, I guess these problems apply to anyone who works from home. I still wouldn’t swap it, though

The list provided really doesn’t seem to be that BAD of a list.

Working From Home/Balancing Work and Life – This is a pretty large issue of every corporate job and/or entrepreneurial venture. That’s why corporations spend so much time and money developing programs to allow workers more “balance”

Computer Time – I’m a s/w guy, so this is never going to change as long as I stay in this industry.

Energy Usage – Totally agree, but running an hour in between posting and surfing wouldn’t hurt too much.

Unstable Industry – All industries have some instability, but if you keep up with the industries new training, skills and technology as well as diversify your skills in other industries and areas of life, then you can face the instability with excitement of new opportunities.

What does it mean if I have 6 different computers with 4 different operating systems?

Seriously, though, the problems you refer to hold true for anyone who works from home, essentially. I hope to some day soon be able to make a list of the things that I don’t like about working from home (from personal experience), too.

Some other quick thoughts: A blogger’s full-time presence at home means more mess, more shopping, more domestic projects. … Email, IM are just as bad as phone calls in the distraction dept. … Blogging advice is everywhere and it’s tempting to read it all, seeking that one terrific tip that’ll turn it all around for your projects. You can chase links and read all day long. … It is easy to lose control of your schedule. When I get on a roll with writing, I sometimes go until dawn. Argh. Being a morlock sucks. Resist the siren call of the night shift.

Thanks for the list, I agree with several commenter’s that this should be “required reading” for the beginning problogger!

It should be “I now have”… oops. I’m running an array of operating systems too, keeps others off of them because they only know Windows.