Working from home sounds like a dream. There’s no commute, you don’t have to throw your kids into daycare and you can work with your own equipment. If you run your own work-from-home business, you control the schedule and just about every other aspect of the business. If you work with a company that allows work-from-home employees, you’ll probably have a somewhat-set schedule, but it’s a more flexible way to fit work into your day-to-day life. Working from home has plenty of advantages, but it has downfalls, too. Here are the some little-discussed negative aspects of working at home, so you can decide whether it’s right for you.

Discipline

Recognize that you need discipline in order to maintain your job. The distractions of a work-at-home workplace are countless, from websites to waste time on to being distracted by friends and family. You have to develop a mindset of work time being the same as going out of the house to work, instead of being available for anyone who needs you. Otherwise, you’ll be plagued with family stopping by to use you as a free baby-sitter, friends who constantly want to go out to lunch and other people who are unable to respect that your time at home is work time.

The flip side of this is to avoid letting your work time spill over into your personal life. It’s easy to develop a workaholic attitude where you’re constantly doing work every time you’re at your computer. This is an especially easy trap to fall into when you work entirely for yourself, as opposed to working through a work-at-home company.

Working with Children at Home

Some jobs, such as phone-based jobs, may be impossible until you have older children. Make sure you get some of the child care workload taken off of you when your partner gets home or use a baby-sitter service. Otherwise, you’re going to become resentful about trying to make a living with a work-at-home job and taking care of the kids on top of it.

Marketing

If you’re working for yourself, you have to constantly be marketing for clients and work. Selling yourself and your services is a skill that takes quite a bit of time to develop, and is often one of the most disliked parts of working at home. Technology such as tablets from Lenovo make it easier to handle kids and your business. Unless you’re in the marketing field, it feels a bit like high-pressure sales as you try to find a good mix between marketing yourself and not being overbearing.

*Written by Wendy Norris, a mom and DIY maven who contributes to a number of parenting and craft blogs.