Working from home is a wonderful opportunity for many people, especially if you are self-employed. Working from home let’s you operate in your own workspace, often at your own pace, and with your own basic guidelines. Even if you answer to a supervisor, you can still work from home as long as you show him or her that you can accomplish all of your daily tasks.
To successfully work from home, you must, above all else, find a way to avoid distractions. Because your home is your living space, it’s filled with creature comforts, chores, and other things that accompany your daily life. It’s not really meant to be a workspace. If you work from home; however, you must convert one part of your home into a workspace so you can avoid the distraction that call from the other aspects of your life. There’s laundry to do. There’s television to watch. There’s the internet to play around on. All of these things will do their best to keep you from getting your work done.
The first thing you should do in order to make your home work-friendly is to create a physical workspace devoted to your professional work. Just like a bed is made for sleeping, so should a workspace be made for work. You’ll need a comfortable chair, a useful desk space, your computer, and any other office supplies. Don’t include a television in your workspace. Don’t include a comfortable reading chair. Of course, it shouldn’t be completely austere; you still want to be comfortable, so feel free to personalize it. Just make sure that as you create the space, you constantly ask yourself, “Is this going to help me get my work done?”
Next, you should establish a daily routine and follow that routine! Wake up early, just as you would if you were driving to the office. Take a shower and dress in appropriate clothes. You can dress down a bit, but consider this: wear what you would need to wear to appear presentable should you be called into an emergency meeting or meet a client for coffee. Work four hours in the morning, take your lunch, then work through the afternoon. Stop at 5pm. You want your routine to mimic as much as possible the office routine. Anything different will make your brain wonder what exactly it’s supposed to be doing. After all, we are creatures of habit.
Finally, when you work from home, you must be twice as good at communicating with your supervisor than you were at the office. Always be prepared to contact him or her or field his or her emails and telephone calls. Likewise, if you’re self-employed, you’ll want to be easy to contact so that your clients know that you’re on the job. By making yourself available, you can convince your supervisor and your clients that you are, indeed, self-sufficient and capable of getting things done when you’re at home. If you turn out to be a great worker when you’re at home, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of not commuting, eating lunch at home, and being comfortable in your workspace.
By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topics of online degree. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: anna22.miller@gmail.com.