Since home-based professionals have such freedom when it comes to setting work hours for themselves, people might think that they would take every holiday off. When I was working outside of the home, I worked some holidays because I often worked in the food service and hospitality industries where all employees are expected to work some holidays. What I discovered while working those holidays was that on holidays, the phones were quiet. There was no incoming mail, and there were very few email messages. As a result, I was able to get a ton of work done because the normal “interruptions” were not interrupting me as often.
When I started working at home, I decided to take what I had learned about working on holidays while working outside of the home and use it to my advantage. My husband works in the restaurant industry, so he works a lot of holidays. There are a couple of holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) that we both take off of work so that we can spend time with family but most holidays are business as usual. Today, for example, I worked at my usual times (while my son was napping and after he went to bed). During my daytime work hours (at nap time), I was able to sit right down and get to work without returning any phone calls or emails or opening the mail.
I know that I’m not the only one that works some holidays by choice, so I looked around online to see what other home-based workers had to say about working on holidays. What I found was that those who were not working were largely doing so because their spouse and children had time off for the holiday and they wanted to spend that time with them. If I were in that situation, I would certainly go for family time over desk time too. Some of the people that reported that they were working on holidays shared my sentiments about being able to get more done. Others also added that working certain holidays enables them to do more fun things on days when most people are working. The decision of whether or not to work on any given holiday is a personal one and each home-based professional will have his or her own reasons for their choice. The great thing is that we have a choice, and I remember that every time there is a holiday and I’m making that decision.
Photo by mensatic on morguefile.com.