Working from Home or Locally

• Home Office
• Work Share
• Set up Locally
• Access Remotely
• Enjoy the Benefits

Set up an office at home 

When exchanging your London dwelling for your much larger, spacious and all round superior country home, it is fairly easy to utilise one of your increased number of rooms as a studio or office. In our increasingly ‘paper free’ world, the office can probably fit in a brief case, hand bag or even a pocket, but if your business plan requires some practical space or storage, you will find this in the country too. Many country homes come with a barn, stables, cottage, or granny annexe and finding a property with a converted building already in use as a business, is fairly common.

Use a work share facility

If you don’t want to work at home, you don’t have to. Some people benefit from the routine of regularly attending a place of work where interaction with other people and the general sense of industry that comes with it, is beneficial. There are several opportunities for office share in most rural areas. Many small business parks have been set up in converted farm buildings and offices are often available in small towns or larger villages. There are many light industrial units around, again on redundant farm sites, where like-minded bespoke trade artisans or crafts people can rent as much space as is needed. Whether it is a simple desk and phone, design space or somewhere to wield your chisel or paint brushes, the best way of finding it is in your local freebie newspaper. Space in one of these workspace facilities is a fraction of what one would pay in London. It could be as little as £50 a week.

Set up locally

If you are the boss and call the shots, why not re-locate your business along with your home. The towns in our areas have great facilities and excellent human resources. You may need to be well placed for business trips to London and Continental Europe, one of the major airports or for motorway and rail access to the Midlands and the North.  There is plenty of scope for you to find the ideal living and working location.

Access your London base remotely

Even if it is for just part of the week, or perhaps just the odd day now and then, the ability to work from home has been massively enhanced by systems allowing us to operate our office computers remotely. There are several excellent, secure and user friendly services on the market, widely used by businesses. There are even some free versions available with many of the features included. So, you can run the office pc from your laptop, at the kitchen table or on your tablet or smartphone in the garden – and no one need know! If there is an unexpected crisis, even outside office hours, you can be in you ‘virtual office’ in as much time as it takes to tap in a few passwords. The use of ‘cloud’ storage for documents allows you to work on specific tasks in the office, at home or in- between, even without installing a remote or screen sharing system.

Check broadband and internet speed in your chosen area

If it is important to your business, check out the internet facilities in the area of your choice.  Although fibre optic is just beginning to roll out, its progress is predicted to be rapid.  Good Broadband is universally available in the vast majority of the countryside, delivering perfectly adequate internet connections for rural dwellers.  Small pockets of inadequate coverage do still exist but tend to be the sparsely populated often hilly or densly forested areas.  If a truly remote setting is what you are after, you may have a compromise to make.  A useful tool is provided by Ofcom.  Current broadband speeds, Mobile 2G, 3G, and 4G coverage, Freeview TV and Digital Radio can be checked via a post code, village name or a click on a map. For a preliminary check visit http://infrastructure.ofcom.org.uk/.

The location of a property in relation to the village exchange will also have a bearing on the real speed available.  Be careful to check as part of your relocation research.  The most accurate prediction of broadband speed is obtained by checking out an actual phone number with a broadband provider, but obviously this is not possible for the house hunter.  One trick is to check out a known phone number in your desired area, the village pub perhaps.  This will give you an indication of likely current speeds for nearby properties. 

Enjoy the benefits of not having to commute to work or struggle through or across London.

• Get some of your life back. So much time is wasted travelling to and from work. Working from home either always, often or just occasionally, gives you back valuable time to spend doing other more enjoyable or practical things. 
• Save a lot of money. Train fares, car parking, petrol are all expensive. Working from home is pretty much free! Sleep more. You don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to commute to London or travel miles to work. So many of us that are slaves to the office and the demands of employers spend ludicrously long hours at work which can mean getting up extremely early and getting home late at night. This invariably takes its toll on personal health and the health of your family.
• Have more involvement with your family. With your children`s schooling and with the community that surrounds it. Do the school run now and then or everyday. If you both work from home or locally you can choose who takes the kids to school. You`ll certainly be able to share a lot more of your life. If you can have a flexible work regime you need never miss the Nativity play or your ‘little darlings’ first appearance as a ballerina/violinist/opening batsman/ poet/goal scorer/pop star ….. Some of the best friendships you make may be via your children, their friends and families.
• Live a healthier and less stressful life. Get up when you need, exercise when you want, eat when & what you want. If you`re not a slave to the London system you can dictate your own terms. Work to live not live to work!
• Play more sport. The countryside offers a multitude of opportunities for sport and recreation.
• Get some sun on your back. If it is a nice day take the phone into the garden or even mow the lawn whilst the weather is fine. If you can catch up on other tasks in the evening, why not!
• More and more people find they just don’t need to be in London. There are writers, artists, designers, creative people of all sorts, who might need to ‘pop up to town’ only occasionally. Then there are the professions – doctors, lawyers, teachers, opticians, vets, etc. who are not tied to any of the major towns or cities. Others might be considering giving up ‘the day job’ and making a go of it with a business idea or turning a hobby into a livelihood. Cashing in on the value of a London property can make all this possible. At London2Country we can point you in the right direction to help find the life you deserve.