Does both having ADHD and working from home sound like a blessing or a curse? Knowing the symptoms and traits of having ADHD, would the opportunity to work at home make work easier or harder? This question might not affect everyone, but the idea of possibly working from home might be closer to a reality for people with ADHD more than most.
As we’ve discussed before, individuals with ADHD tend towards becoming entrepreneurs more than most. Additionally, individuals with ADHD tend towards more creative pursuits and finding innovative solutions. All these things put together point to a greater possiblity of working at home or alone. After all, for most business owners, their business usually starts in their basement or garage at home.
For many with ADHD, working from home might initially sound like the perfect fix for all your work related troubles. Maybe, like many with ADHD, you have tried more than one career in the last several years and nothing seems to fit right. In this article, we want to look at the positives and negatives of ADHD and working from home.
For some with ADHD, working from home could be a perfect situation. For others, though, it could just amplify the effects of ADHD symptoms and ruin your work productivity. Weighing the positives and negatives can help you find out if it might be the right fit for your personality.
Positives About ADHD and Working From Home
If you find yourself trying to figure out if ADHD and working from home might be right for you, you really need to look closely at both the positives and negatives. Depending on how you like to work and your personality, working from home can be uplifting or could destroy your small business aspirations. Before we get to several potential negatives, let’s start with the good stuff. Let’s talk a little more about the potential positives with ADHD and working from home.
You’re the Boss
Most everyone who works from home also runs their own business. This isn’t 100% the case as some people work for a business at their house. Still, the overwhelming majority of people working from home, have their own business or do small jobs for others at their own pace. Many people see this idea of running the show, so to speak, as one of the greatest positives of working from home.
Think about it. Really think about how great this could be. You don’t have to answer to anybody. If you decide to sleep in later one day, you don’t have to worry about calling in. You make all the rules.
This situation might seem particularly ideal for many with ADHD. For people with ADHD, they sometimes have trouble following the schedule or instructions from other people. The ADHD mind sometimes works differently from others which can lead to misunderstandings between bosses and employees. As your own boss, you don’t have to worry about those misunderstandings or letting your supervisor down. This can eliminate a lot of the potential work stress for people with ADHD.
You Set Your Own Hours
Not only does working from help make you your own boss, but you also get to set your own hours. This idea can play an important role for someone with ADHD. Depending on your personality, some people with ADHD have difficulty performing or focusing early in the morning. Others with ADHD really struggle with sitting and focusing for long periods during the day. With ADHD and working from home, though, you don’t need to worry about any of this. You can chose to work when you function and focus best and can get the most done.
The opportunity to set your own hours can really provide someone with ADHD help in building an effective ADHD daily routine. With working from home, you can devise the best schedule that builds in the right amount of breaks to make you the most productive. This saves on any wasted hours that you might spend working for someone else just not being able to connect with or focus on your work as you need to.
You Can Follow Where Your Creativity Takes You
Many people with ADHD feel stifled working in an office environment because they can’t follow the creative thoughts they have. Their mind moves constantly and everyday they have ideas on how to make this better or that process more efficient. If only, though, they had a work structure and environment that encouraged innovation instead of discouraged it.
Can you resonate with this line of thinking? Would you say that this description fits you pretty well? If you happen to look into the lives of many celebrities who thrive with ADHD, you will more than likely see a similar pattern. Many of them possibly worked in a regular office setting, but wanted something more. They wanted to follow the innovation and creativity their ADHD mind pushed them towards.
Ultimately, this idea of following the creative spark might provide the impetus for many to try ADHD and working from home on for size. After all, you only have one life to live, and life is short. If your current career doesn’t provide the creative outlet you need, then working from home might really provide the environment to let your creativity free.
Negatives About ADHD and Working From Home
Like almost any option in life, ADHD and working from home also has a negative side. Additionally, for some people, the negatives actually might outweigh the positives. You might not like a whole lot about your current job. Still, that might not necessarily mean that working from home would be the best solution for you. Let’s look more closely at what some negatives about ADHD and working from home might be.
You Have to Make Sure You Stay on Task
You need to focus. In many ways, ADHD and working from home comes down to that simple idea. Just like working in an office or for someone else, you have to actually sit down, focus, and get the job done. Unlike with working in an office setting, though, with working from home you’re the only one checking on if you’re staying on task.
In an office environment, more than likely, the work of others depends on you completing your work. This means that your coworkers oftentimes help to keep you on target. With working alone and doing your own work, though, you only have yourself to depend upon. If you don’t focus, you might end up not doing much work at all for the whole day, or even a whole week. For a small business, not staying on track could turn disastrous quickly.
Fortunately, you can use different strategies or even helpful apps to try to focus and stay on target. You could even listen to music. Ultimately, though, if the lack of accountability with working from home provides too much lack of focus then you might be better off working on a team in an office.
Boredom Can Present a Bigger Problem
Boredom and ADHD tend to go together. Since the ADHD mind moves constantly, many people with ADHD have trouble really getting into something and enjoying it. When it comes to work, this problem might only get worse as work tasks can feel tiresome and uninteresting.
Right now, you might feel that you get bored pretty easily at work. In reality, though, in an office, when you get bored, you have less other things to turn to than at home. Boredom at home can draw you away from your tasks and keep you away for the rest of the day. With ADHD and working from home, you can find any number of better things you might want to do than work and never go back to your task.
Boredom in an office setting can be a problem. Boredom while working from home, though, can make tasks impossible to complete. To combat against boredom with working from home, you really need to consider having a dedicated work space free from distractions. You need to make your own home office and make sure you keep the distractions away as much as possible.
Difficulty Communicating with Business Partners
With ADHD and working from home, you most likely have to build your own structures from the ground up. This usually means finding new methods and avenues of communication with business partners. Starting a new business requires a log of leg work. You have to go out and connect with people and make clients and meet buyers.
While for some people with ADHD, these types of social interactions might not present too much of a problem. For some others, though, they might find cold calling off putting and meeting with potential clients stressful. Doing this type of work on your own depends on you wanting to engage with your clients on a social level. While you can possibly hide within the structure of a larger company, when its just you, many times your social skills can make or break your efforts.
Before starting to work from home, you need to consider if you would really do well with the social interactions involved with a small business. While many people with ADHD can learn to improve social interactions, still this might not come naturally. Before launching out on your own, you should try out some of these potential interactions first. Try cold calling clients or meeting face to face with buyers before committing 100%. If the interactions don’t feel awkward or forced, then you might have a good fit after all.
Weighing the Pros and Cons to Find Out if ADHD and Working from Home Could Be Your Solution
No two of us think or act exactly the same. Even with those of us with ADHD, no two people absolutely function and behave best in the same exact setting. This means that while many people with ADHD might struggle in the traditional work setting, working from home might not necessarily be the best fit for everyone.
To decide if a career move toward working from home might work well for you, you need to sit down and make your own positives and negatives list. You need to think about the lack of accountability at home without a boss, and figure out if your personality might really thrive or flounder in that environment. While we all would like to think that we would work well being our own boss, we might really not.
Ultimately, if you weigh the pros and cons and find that working from home might not fit well with your personality, you don’t have to give up. You should keep looking for the right career match for yourself. For some ideas you can check out our article on ADHD friendly jobs or the suggestions at this link. You might feel like you’re not in your perfect job now. Don’t give up hope, you still have time to try out new opportunities even if working from home might not be one of them.
