One of my lovely minions, RobertPlantFan, wrote a great article several months ago and posted it in our Work At Home forum under Productivity. It inspired a great conversation amongst our members. I wanted to make sure that it doesn’t get lost, so I asked her if I could reprint it on the front page and she graciously agreed. So for those of you who missed it the first time, here you go:

I began working from home full time in 2002, but not entirely by choice–I was downsized. Now they say things happen for a reason, and that may just have been the kick in the pants to get me started. I’d been freelancing in my spare time since 1984 so I turned my side job into my full job and have been happy with the outcome since.

Working at home is NOT all roses and daisies. Yeah, you get to work in your jammies but you also have to deal with the paperwork, paying your own insurance, social security, and quarterly taxes. Collecting from slow paying customers is now more urgent because there’s no “real job” to fall back on. Your family doesn’t understand that you’re not just sitting at home all day playing on the computer.

A whole new mindset comes with working at home as well. Here are a few things I’ve found that keep me on track and productive. Maybe they’ll work for you.

Keep a Schedule/Set Daily Goals
If you are a structured environment person or work better with a little rigidity, then set up “office hours” for yourself. They don’t have to be business hours. If you work better in the middle of the night like I do, then set your hours for the middle of the night. If you have to deal with clients “in person” via phone or meetings, those days can be planned in advance and worked in.

If you don’t need the structure of set hours, then set a daily goal list. Unlike a “To Do” list, a goal list is a list of things that you can and will accomplish in a regular day’s work. In this scheme, as long as you get the daily goals met, a 3 hour lunch with a pal isn’t going to disrupt your workflow. But remember that “daily” means within a 24-hour period that also includes reasonable sleeping time, meals, breaks and chores.

Be Flexible/Prioritize
Once you’ve set your daily goal, be flexible enough in your mindset to allow for minor interruptions. If a client calls and needs a paragraph added to something and it will only take you 5 minutes, work it in. It keeps the client happy and might net more work.

If you don’t have clients to work with and are mainly designing for PODs and doing affiliate, then be flexible enough to restructure your goals and still meet them. If the work you planned on one niche/design isn’t motivating you right then, add that to another day’s goal, and work on one that is allowing you to get something done.

Treat It Like A Business
Even with all that jammie wearin’ flexibility, you still need to treat your home business like a business. Be firm with family and friends about bugging you during “work” hours if it becomes too frequent. Be firm with yourself about running off for that 3 hour lunch if you know it will impact your goal. The three hour lunch is NOT worth staying up all night when something doesn’t work out like you’d planned.

Which comes to the next point. While working at home does often mean that you work more hours than you normally might at an outside job, don’t let the work overtake your entire life. Part of the appeal of working at home is to allow more freedom to actually enjoy things. If you work 20 hour days, 7 days a week and don’t even get overtime, what have you gained? Take at least one day a week off and don’t feel guilty about it. The world won’t end.

Write it Down
It may seem silly, but start your day or your week by writing your daily goals down. Having them in your head is not the same thing. It’s way too easy to edit in your mind.

I find having a day planner is worth everything in this area. I have sections where I write down ideas and a section where I write my daily goals. I have even designed my own tracking sheets and goal lists that I print out and use in my planner. It’s cheaper than buying those fancy planner pages, and I can make them suit the way I work.

Attitude Matters
Roll your eyes all you like, but attitude makes the difference between joy and drudgery. The way I see it, we have to work to make a living so why not enjoy it? Working from home should be a first step to realizing that joy.

When I was downsized, the first thing I did was break a few things around the house, wonder how DARE they do this to me (and the rest of my team), plot some annoying revenge scenarios, and wonder if the world was out to get me. After that hour passed it was time to get down to business.

Setbacks happen, things go wrong, clients go away and it’s natural to be upset or angry. But once that’s done with, get to work. Instead of wasting time playing a blame game or beating your chest and rending your garments, use that energy in your work and make things that much better. Overcoming setbacks is the best revenge. EVAR.

There’s nothing wrong with the power of positive thinking, either. I have taught myself to try and see the good part about any bad situation. If the good part is only that it boots my butt to get going on something new, then so be it. I find that operating in this manner lets me sleep better and makes me look forward to coming to the computer to work on my projects. Not to mention it makes me a more pleasant person to be around, I’m told.

In Summary
Yes, I hear you grumbling “oh that pie in the sky stuff never works! I have to work 22 hours a day just to get by! I can’t let up! I can’t stop”. Well, yes you can. That kind of thinking can wear you down and can actually impede your work and lead to illness. Yes, there will be some times when you need to put in extra hours to get a project off the ground. But learn to target your efforts and organize them. If you go in with a scattershot approach you might hit something just by chance, but if you aim precisely, you’ll make a kill every time with a single shot.

Working accounts for 25 percent of our week (actually 23.8% but close enough). We might as well make the best of it. Our success is in our own two hands and how we structure our time and deal with setbacks can make all the difference.

As a reporter turned typesetter, RPF spends her time fiddling about with Robert Plant, and trying to build a POD empire. She has been working from home as a freelance typesetter and designer since 2001, and has been exploring the world of POD since 2002. She is located in Kentucky–a stone’s throw from Amazon.com and 3 stone throws from CafePress.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!