I can’t keep track on how many times I have been told on how lucky I am to work from home. The reality is that there are perks and downfalls to working from home. The amount of disruptions that I receive from family and friends throughout the day. The amount of times that I think I can just throw in a load of laundry while still completing all of my task for the day. The awful truth is that being able to successfully work from home without a plan and a schedule , you will easily be sidetracked with household chores or any unnecessary distractions.
Here are some tips that will help your days in your home office be more successful.
CREATE AN OFFICE LOCATION
Creating a designated area in your home that will help separate your home life and professional life is important. This area will allow you to mentally walk into your professional zone, that will help you create an instant business mentality. This will allow you to maintain yourself on task. This will also help with blocking out some of those unnecessary disruptions that you might get from others at home.
SET A SCHEDULE
Staying on task can be difficult. If you plan your week, create a schedule of hours that will allow you to work while creating time slots to accommodate all the task that you need to accomplish for your week. This will allow you to hold yourself accountable and complete your goals for the week. By creating a schedule you can also manage to maintain your professional life and personal life separated without giving up on one.
PROPER EQUIPMENT
Let’s face it if your working from home then you are fully aware that you need to invest in some equipment. One of the perks of working out of your home is that you don’t need to invest in any equipment. The downfall from working from home is that you are responsible to invest in the proper equipment to keep your business afloat and capable of completing all task. While purchasing a laptop or desk top can sound easy. Keep in mind that based on the type of usage you will be getting out of it you will determine which one you will purchase. The same goes with educating yourself on the type of software or internet services you will need to make the proper decisions to invest in the correct one based on the needs of your business. If you work off the interest most of the time you might want to look into subscribing to a high internet program that will allow you to upload and have higher internet speeds.
SOCIAL TIME
Social time, the hardest part for me since I began working from home.The fact that I lost the way to directly engage with others, really did’nt bother me at first. After a while I began to notice that I actually miss taking lunch breaks with co-workers and conversations about weekend plans. It began to get to a point where the only person that I would talk to would be my husband or my children for days. That just isn’t healthy and it began to really bother me. You need to create a routine on taking some work days to your local coffee shop. Having lunch outside of your home office, even if you’re sitting by yourself. It is important to find other people within your business community that you can network with and support each other.
SCHEDULE IN BREAKS AND LUNCH
When your working from home and no one is interrupting you can easily sit in front of your desk while time passes by you and forget to give your mind and body a break. I have been a victim of this, when I notice that I have been sitting in the same spot for 7 hours is when my kids come walking through the door. It is important to stretch and eat a meal to refuel your body. Even if you need to set an alarm to remind yourself. Be sure to get up from your chair every 20 minutes and stretch or take a short walk.
