Being able to work from home is an ideal way to achieve the perfect work-life balance for many people, especially those who have families to look after or who are unable to make it to the office due to health concerns. Once the preserve of the self-employed, working from home is now something that is enjoyed by people in all kinds of professions from accountancy to management to estate agency and more. How can you make sure you are as successful as possible – and as productive – when you are working from home?
The Commute
Once upon a time you would have had to make a commute – potentially a very long one – from your home to your place of work. Now you don’t have to do that, so why not make the most of your extra time? Instead of sitting on a train, bus, or driving your car, you could be getting on with all those little admin tasks that otherwise build up. Your accounts, answering emails, making a plan of things to do for the rest of the day or weeks. Someone who works from home successfully will make the most of every moment they have, allowing for more free time when they want it. This extra time can be utilized for work tasks or it can be used for personal reasons. Head to the gym, go for a run outside or start liaising with your customers as soon as you wake up – the world is your oyster!
Comfortable Space Just For You
It’s incredibly hard to be productive and successful if you’re working in a corner of the lounge while the kids watch TV behind you. The same goes for the kitchen table when someone is cooking. Or any space that is used for another purpose, come to that. What you need to be as successful as possible is your own, comfortable space that is used solely for your home working, whatever that may be. A spare bedroom is ideal, or you might have a study already. Alternatives include partitioning off a section of a larger room to create a new room, or even buying an workspace for the garden (just make sure it has power and light, and you may also need to look at additional ways to boost your broadband speed out there too). As long as you have a space free from distractions, your productivity will soar and you’ll be able to be completely at one with your work.
Be Professional
If you wouldn’t turn up to an office workspace in your pajamas, then you really don’t want to sit in your home office in your PJs either. If you wouldn’t check Facebook with your boss just around the corner, you shouldn’t be doing it from home either. Working from home is great when it comes to no commuting and potential flexibility, but the most successful homeworkers will work as though they were still at the office. Act as professional as possible, and you’ll feel more inclined to get your work done (to a high standard too). Have Facebook disabled on your desktop to stop any temptations and don’t have a TV in your office space.
Don’t Get Distracted
Distraction is the issue that many homeworkers have most problems with. Knowing that your half-finished book is lying just outside the door, or that you could switch on the TV for a little while and no one would ever know, or even that the refrigerator is full of goodies and suddenly you’re hungry (even though you just ate) is a terrible temptation. So is the internet. How many minutes can go by when you intended to simply browse for a moment while your brain is re-set between tasks? Before you know it, half an hour has gone by and you’ll now have to work later than you’d intended, or leave your work unfinished for the day. There are a number of different strategies that can be employed here (turning off the WIFI, making a to do list and so on), but whatever you choose test it out a few times before getting comfortable. Productive, successful homeworkers can’t afford to get distracted.
