No more staring at brake lights: how working from home improved my life

Rapid advances in technology, not to mention the recent restrictions of Covid, have brought big changes to working practices in recent years.

Video conferencing software means we can literally be in several places at once. Cloud-based CRMs like Charitylog enable users to log in from anywhere – whether it’s the office, a service user’s home or their own front room.

Many of our charity customers now work remotely. And while we’re hearing in the news that some organisations are now enticing their employees back to the office, many others have found that a more flexible approach suits them, their staff and their clients.

Once I started working from home I never looked back. Traffic jams, speed cameras, missed parcel deliveries – these are just some of the things I don’t miss.

I don’t miss driving miles in winter, anxiously glancing at flashing motorway signs warning me about ice or roadworks or stranded vehicles. I don’t miss the bored welcome from the hotel receptionist as I arrive at the desk late at night, bleary eyed, barely remembering what county I’m in, let alone the name of the town.

Let’s just say, I struggled to empathise with Jack Kerouac’s pleasure at the thought of having ‘nothing behind me, everything ahead of me.’ It was the exact opposite for me.

As one of Charitylog’s Implementation Consultants, it’s my job to help new customers get their Charitylog systems up and running. And it’s something I genuinely enjoy. Meeting and talking with new people, learning about what they do and showing them how Charitylog will help is hugely rewarding.

But this used to mean regularly travelling to different sites, many of them quite far away. A 600-mile round trip wasn’t uncommon. Often, I felt too exhausted to function properly. And when I got back there was little time or energy left for my family.

There are so many advantages. I can spend more time with individual clients, no matter whether they’re based in Aberdeen or Penzance. Clients can invite colleagues at different sites to take part in our calls. And we can record sessions (with consent, of course!) for users to refer to later.

It’s helpful for our small company too. We’re no longer spending thousands of pounds on fuel and hotel bills, which helps keeps our costs down. And lower costs mean we can offer lower prices than most of our competitors.

Of course, not everyone has the option to work from home, and others choose not to. But for those of us who do, who won’t be staring at brake lights for hours on end or spending half our lives in soulless motorway services, it’s a godsend.

After all, technology should exist to make life easier, and better. It should help us to interact with one another and, crucially, to manage that most precious resource of all: time.