You know the stereotype of the overweight, sloppy, working-from-home nerd sitting in front of the computer all day in his underwear?

Yeah, I know. It’s not a pretty picture. You can stop visualizing it now. It makes my flesh crawl.

Some people actually think that this is a dream lifestyle. Personally, though, I think it’s a terrible lifestyle.

So here are my top reasons why you should get your sorry ass out of the house before no one ever hears from you again.

1) Distractions galore

Home is where your stuff is.

Home is the fabled lost city of distraction. There’s always some shiny bauble to catch your eye; if nothing else, you could spend days obsessively rearranging your bookshelves.

And there are always chores. Ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? It’s basically the idea that work expands to fill all the time available.

So if you don’t take steps to minimize the amount of time available for chores — by, perhaps, you know, not actually being at home — monsters like laundry will somehow expand to fill the better part of a day. And no matter how much time you spend dealing with them, they’ll always come back.

These are monsters that will eat you alive. Watch out.

2) The Internet

Internet access is increasingly available in many places, but if you have any access at all you’ll almost definitely find it at home.

The internet is a portal into strange lands. In particular, it is the gateway to weird regions with names such as Facebook or Youtube or Wikipedia or TVTropes or Cracked, and if you wander in without adequate preparation you may never come out. Away from home there are certain failsafes to drag you back, but at home there is nothing to pull you back from the abyss. No laptop battery perishing from overuse. No coffee shop attendant giving you the death glare for having sat six hours in one spot with one drink. No co-workers to smack you upside the head and get you back to work.

Make no mistake: if you wander in from home with no-one around to keep an eye on you, you may be lost forever.

3) Dealing with other people like a human being

Humans are social creatures.

We were designed to get out there and hang out with other humans. I KNOW the internet can act as a medium for communication — I’m talking to you over the internet right now, after all — but it’s Just Not The Same.

Because the vast bulk of all human communication is nonverbal. Most of what we communicate has to do with something other than the words we use. And I’m not just talking body language here. There are other human things, such as dressing and grooming and style and manners. I don’t care how many people you “communicate” with online — you’ll still be picking your nose in front of the computer if you think no one can see you. (Ewww.)

Your voice will also atrophy from disuse, so that you go “garblbleaghhh” when you want to say “Hi” and everybody you actually meet in real life runs away from you.

Also: being free from the influence of everybody else’s stares takes away one major motivation to exercise.

Being overweight, ugly and sitting in front of your computer screen in your underwear is NOT a Good Thing. Really. It’s not. If you think it is you need to stop hanging out online and go meet some actual people for a while.

4) Inspiration

If you’re in a creative profession — and many work-from-home types are — you owe it to yourself to keep on drawing inspiration from the world around you.

Inspiration is found on the street. Really. If you see nothing apart from the inside of your house day after day your thoughts are also going to go in circles. Nothing new is really going to pop up.

If allowed to build up, the psychic entropy accumulated at home is going to kill your career stone dead. And then you’ll have to trudge back to work and start all over again.

Not fun.

5) Getting more done (or feeling like you have)

One thing I’ve found over the years is that the more varied the locations I visit over the course of the day, the more I feel I’ve accomplished with my time.

I could visit the university library, the shopping mall, the gym, the beach. I find the farther afield I go (and the more places I go), the greater a sense of achievement I have when I look back on my day.

Would it be possible to accomplish more by just staying in one place? Yes. But the likelihood of your getting it all done decreases significantly the longer you stay in that same place (remember Parkinson’s Law).

Visiting different neighbourhoods, on the other hand, limits the time available to each task and gives you fresh boosts of mental stimulation.

It’s much better than simply hanging out in your own room. Really.

And now I’m off to the gym (the fourth place I’ll be visiting today), having just finished up a nice snack of cut fruit in a food court in town. Talk soon!

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