Whether you’re dreaming of working from home or you’ve actually found a way to do it, balancing home life with work life is tricky when your abode is also your office. It can be done, however, if you have the drive, discipline and knowledge that it takes. This article has some great tips to help you work effectively from home.
1. Put yourself on a schedule. Yes, you’re the boss, so act like one and manage your time. If you don’t schedule yourself the hours you need to be dedicated to your home business, you will be tempted to sleep in, knock off early and take long lunches. In short, your business will fail. Home businesses, particularly new ones, need attention and hard work to become and remain successful.
2. Keep chore time separate from work time. It’s tempting to multitask. Why not throw a load of laundry or turn on the sprinklers while you’re optimizing your site? Well, because these things usually snowball. You may be able to get that one load of laundry done, but you’ll probably think of ten more things to also do. Pretty soon, you’ll not be focused on your work like you need to be. If you must multitask, make sure all tasking is business related.
3. Always act in a professional manner. You are, after all, at work. You may be dealing with difficult people over the phone, email or your website, but you don’t have the luxury of telling them off, no matter how tempting that may be. You can never measure exactly how much business you’ll lose because of one dissatisfied customer. Word-of-mouth advertising works both ways.
4. Don’t work for free. Friends may ask you to do them favors from time to time because of whatever business you are in, and that could be all right just one time. But, it could just as easily lead to you being taken advantage of down the line, something you will truly regret. This is best avoided by having a rock-solid policy of not doing business, for free or otherwise, with friends.
5. Get rid of all distractions. Much like the laundry, other things like the television, radio, pets and even family can distract you from your focus. Tell family that you are not available during office hours unless there is an emergency. Post your office hours on your office door or in your workspace if need be.
If free services aren’t working for you, then pay for what you need. For example, your business may do better by having a paid domain rather than a free blog. It’s up to you to figure out what will work best for your business, and sometimes it does take money to make money.
Those are just some of the basic tips for effectively working from home. Use your home business as an excuse to reinvent the way business is done, and you will fail time and time again. Treat your home business with the respect you would treat any company who employed you, and you will surely be successful.
