Working from Home

By B. Dear

I am a part-time entrepreneur, a former business major, and I love doing business. During the day, I work as a consultant for a small company and spend my evenings writing my blog and working on other web development projects at home. The work that I do at home is slowly growing into a second job or home business for me, and I often discuss my work with coworkers at my day job.

When I mention the work that I do in the evening, people often tell me that I should just work from home full-time. They say that they would love to have a job where they were able to work at home everyday.

Although I don’t entirely disagree, I have worked at home before, and it isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t have a thorough understanding of what it means to “work from home”. It seems that the general assumption about working from home is that it is always comfortable, convenient and fun. I think what most people picture sitting at home in their bare feet and pajamas, drinking coffee and surfing the Internet. They are not really thinking about the work that needs to be done and how they will do it when they are at home.

Yes, I am the “Debbie-Downer” that is here to tell you that working from home isn’t always that great of an idea. I used to write Internet research papers for a major consulting firm where I was pretty much my own boss. What I can tell you from this experience is that working from home can sometimes be incredibly stressful and difficult.

To work at home you will need to have an incredible amount of discipline. Here is the dilemma. You will be home most of the day, in a comfortable setting, entirely on your own, in proximity to all your favorite things.

These factors alone are fairly counterproductive to work in their own right. Now add family issues, visitors, and personal telephone calls. After a while, these things can really begin to interfere with meeting your milestones and staying on schedule.

If you are thinking of working from home or launching your own startup business from home, here are some tips to increase productivity and complete your work on schedule:

1. Set up a daily schedule and plan your work. Set clear milestones for each day.
2. Abide by the schedule religiously.
3. Have a separate work area in a space away from your family and friends while you are working.
4. Set strict ground rules regarding interruptions during your work day. Explain to your family that when you are working, you cannot be interrupted unless it is an emergency.
5. Always meet your deadlines. Your employers and customers are trusting you with the freedom to work at home. Show them that you can handle it.