Friday Feature: Does Working from Home Work?

Ever since I retired from my job as a school counselor, I've spent most of my time among the ranks of the work-from-home population. As a writer, I did some of this before as well but, since I was also employed full time, I couldn't really call myself a work-from-home employee.

Though I'm still an educator, I'm now an adjunct professor, which means that the hours I spend working from home on both/all my jobs far outnumber those spent "at the office." I know the pros and cons all too well and have a love/hate relationship with my satellite office at my local Starbucks; I love the location and the atmosphere but can't always find a parking spot and/or a table and I'm sometimes too distracted by the music or the other patrons to successfully accomplish much of anything. Then again, I sometimes have the same concentration issues at home, with a much larger number of distractions.

So, does this work-at-home thing work? If you've ever been tempted to join the ranks of the underdressed and overdistracted, take a look at what Stanford researchers have determined about how successful this proposition is.

As for me, it's time to change out of my pajamas and head to Starbucks.