Things You Should Consider When Working From Home
Picture it – it is a cold, dark and wet Monday morning and you are sitting in your car, in company with hundreds of others, in a rush hour-induced parking lot on the interstate. It’s 7 AM and you could do with another cup of coffee. Doesn’t this picture make you want to change your life and set up your own business, working from home? This is undoubtedly a question that hundreds of thousands of people think about on a regular basis. For some, it marks the start of a fantastic new career, but for others it just won’t work for a variety of reasons. So what should you consider before making the jump and firing your boss?
In reality there are a number of questions that you will need to address before you will be in a position to swap your driving boots for slippers. First and foremost, what talent and/or skills do you possess that would enable you to establish your own business? This is the fundamental question and you will be surprised what answers you can come up with if you really sit down and think about it thoroughly. You might remember that you had particular skills or passions in school or in college that could translate into a potential service. You might have a hobby which you could turn into a business enterprise, although many experts do advise against this!
Once you have settled on your work at home career you need to ask yourself whether you can financially cover the resources needed to take you through your transition, through the acquisition of clients and forward until you are at least able to meet all your monthly monetary requirements. Don’t underestimate the time that this may take, or take anything for granted. Can you think of some potential clients for your services? If you can, then you could really jump start this process.
Don’t be fooled by the time it will take to develop your new business enterprise. You will burn a lot of midnight oil and you will find that you are working far more than you were in your regular 9-to-5 job, at the very least to begin with. This will impact your home schedule and you really need to consider this. Working from home can have a lot of distractions and you will need to make sure that other family members fully understand that when you are at work, you are at work. Scheduling will be very important, as you must make sure that you have made the adequate preparations to look after your home chores, including getting the children off to school and looking after the pets, etc.
Try and come up with a very strict schedule and try and adhere to time management principles as efficiently as possible. You will need to allocate an area of your home as your office. Ideally, your home already has a suitable room and you should try to keep work in there and home activities elsewhere. Do not mix the two!
You will find that working from home can have major benefits, including a reduction in the stress of commuting. But when you are sitting in that jam of traffic on the interstate next Monday morning don’t be tempted to think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as it takes a particular mindset and a very strict regime to make a go of working from home.
Do you work from home? What things did you consider before moving away from the office?
Adam Toren
For me the key is in the definition of ‘work’. I make most of my hours at clients still, due to the business I am in, but I also work many hours from my home office. I even ‘work’ in weekends.
The difference is that when I work from home, I am doing things which don’t feel like work. But I put many more hours into it than I would working for a boss. It’s all in the name
….and don’t get distracted by the web based online games as you will never get anything done
I like the fact you emphasize that you burn the Midnight oil - so many ‘make your own business online’ sites tend to forget about that. :-/
First, the biggest adjustment that I had to make was in differentiating between work and non-work time. It’s not enough to say that 9-5 is work hours, plus extra time on evenings and weekends. The work didn’t fit into any traditional underrstanding of work time, nor did the non-work time. Work time could be any time, but so could non-work time. It no longer mattered so much what I was doing when, as long as i was fully servicing my clients and doing the things that i needed to do to move my business forward.
Second, there is no way that you can fully appreciate everything that goes into marketing a professional practice. Website development and optimization. Online networking. Face-to-face networking. Publicity agents. Writing, writing, writing. It’s often advised that you should set aside one day a week for marketing. I’ve found that’s not nearly enough.
I think you should realistically consider “making the jump and firing your boss” only when you have had some decent success online. You should already be making some money on the internet and be confident you can continue to earn more.
Very good article, Adam. I loved the image you built in my mind of being stuck in that morning traffic … and needing another cup of coffee … ha ha been there, done that. But you forgot the frequent corollary, while stuck and wanting that additional cup, you have already had several before leaving, and now you want a bathroom to show up really, really bad. Talk about conflicting needs
I am glad the first two comments already mentioned the important factor so many miss. Getting rid of the morning commute, your unappreciative boss, etc. is great, but to work for yourself you have to work, probably much harder than you have actually been working at your conventional ‘dirt based’ job. Are you ready to give up random surfing, addictive games and (careful, terrifying thought approaching …) Hours and hours of TV?
As an American who has lived long periods of time both with and without TV, I feel it’s one of the biggest drags on the economy and perhaps self actualization there is. You can be a success working on your own, but Boston might have to struggle for the pennant without your ‘help’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ might have to stay ‘desperate’ in order for you to succeed.
Many folks I talk to about starting their own business claim they have no time, yet very often they have 3 or 4 completely unused hours every night, sprawled in from of the TV watching ‘mind pablum’. That’s 20 plus hours a week you already have for your business success if you are willing to make an execitive decision … prioritize time.
With your article, you’ve hit the hot spot in my life. Seeing my self as future self-employed entrepreneur, I find my self now in situation (the transition), where I cannot change my home-job environment. I have to work in the same room where tv is, usually when gf’s sitting in front of it, having no space for my work.
Being disturbed by all of these home elements, I understand that working from home full-time needs more than this.
Unfortunately, there is no other solution for me, so I have to make it through, until we move under bigger roof.
So just wanted to say, how true is, that mixing up your workspace with your entertainment/social space, is the worst thing you can do - ending up with ‘hating’ both.
Thanks for this one and keep up the good posts!
i am also trying to make money online as a part time earning and soon thinking to make it as full time earning and my main business.
will recommend it to my frds also.
inpired a lot from the post
I find that when I started my home business I worked harder and more when I still had my 9 to 5. My biggest piece of advise is to keep working the grind as long as possible because once you quit you may find yourself not doing too much working from home.
The park is just so much more fun : )
In the end, most people still get stuck to the office-work stereotype. And who can blame them? Realistically, it’s also hard to get a decent income here online.
I think one of the biggest things you should consider before working from home is, what type of person you are… by this.. I mean are you a self-motivated person. Because at home… there will be no boss telling you what to do… and you are in charge of your future when you are working from home, you can choose to do anything… you can choose to your work… or you can choose to slack off alot. That’s one of the biggest hurdles in my opinion that alot of people have trouble with when working from home.
Till then,
Jean
There’s no doubt that if you work for yourself from home, you will be working MANY more hours than you did at any job. You may not work perfectly set hours, but you will find yourself working on and off throughout the 24 hour day, which usually extends well into the night - and even has you thinking about business in your sleep.
If you are not a self-motivated person, forget about working for yourself. It just won’t work. Make sure whatever you choose to do is something you WANT to do and ENJOY working on. Otherwise, you will easily be distracted by the “at-home” elements and never make any progress.
One huge advantage to the freedom of working at home is being able to take a breather anytime you want. Take time to go “think” somewhere other than in front of your computer. You can go for a walk, take a bike ride, or even mow the lawn (all of which are therapeutic and can help you retain motivation and refresh your thinking). Remember, it’s YOU who must create the task list and set goals. At home, it’s too easy to work TOO MUCH, so it’s imperative to take many breaks and get exercise.
Good luck to all! There’s no better boss than yourself!
-Dave
Used Tires:
I think thats a good point b/c what good is the concept of saving money with your overhead by staying home but u never get any work done b/c when you are home you get comfortable and have no one around to hold you accountable.
So, yes know first who you are then decide the next step. If you know you need people around to keep you on your toes then having an actual office with the added expenses will make u more money thn staying at home and not doing anything towards the business at all.
Home-based business and work-at-home opportunity scams rank very high on the list of the top types of Internet fraud. Is there any website which ranks top ranking, trustworthy home based work providers?
I really like your article and Your ideas. i like yuor idea of scheduling our time while working from home.Otherwise it should not happend that we will waste our lots of time in doing the unvaluable things.And I think before taking this decisison of working from home we should observed ourself.we have to know our possitive as well as negative points.we have to self motivated and confident as there is no one to guide us.