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Once I decided that I wanted to become self-employed and work from home full-time, I knew I had to be organized and well-disciplined in order to see positive results. But even with strategic planning there were still an innumerable amount of unforeseen obstacles that I encountered as I wrote about here. However, once I realized what some of the fundamental issues were, I decided to take action in order to maintain proper balance and have success. Ultimately, part of the formula of the key to success is not giving up, including the 10 tips I list below.
10 Tips on how to keep your balance:
1. Create a nice/clutter-free specific space to work {Definitely, not the couch}. Speaking from experience, I used to find that I constantly had to get up to either go get a pen, or the calendar or notepad and phone that I’d forgotten in another room, which of course exhausted me and made feel unproductive as I was wasting a lot of time going to get things instead of hunkering down and getting real work done. So having a specific space will make setting up a daily work schedule much easier, because there will be that sense of separation of your personal living quarters and business working quarters.
2. Being self-employed requires that you be disciplined, self-motivated, and willing to take the initiative (see #7 below).
3. Must take breaks. As I mentioned (see #8), one of the cons is getting so engrossed in what you’re doing that you can completely forget or forego taking those necessary breaks. What I’ve been doing is setting my phone timer to go off every two hours, so I can get up for snacks and lunch breaks, or to just simply give my mind a break.
4. Accept failures. I’m constantly working on this one. It’s important to remember that life isn’t perfect and that things, no matter how well planned, won’t always turn up or guarantee success as expected. Just do the best that you can that day and move on. “Don’t worry about failures, our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fail.”
5. Dress for success. Okay, one of the pros of working from home is that you can just roll out of bed and work in your PJs. Though that’s true and there are occasions that will happen, especially if you’re not feeling too well or motivated to get dressed, it’s also imperative to remember that how you’re dressed affects you psychologically too. I find that when I take the time to groom myself and get dressed before heading to my office upstairs. I feel more motivated and end up being more productive. Possibly because it separates my personal lounging time to business mode time.
6. Avoid internet surfing. Let’s face it, Instagram|| Pinterest|| Twitter|| can be a time drain if we don’t set time limits. I find in my case that there are some mornings, I’m more interested in looking at what’s happening on IG instead of starting my work day. But when I stick to my to daily set schedule, I find that I not only get a lot done but I feel happy for being productive. It’s very essential to avoid social media or texting friends and other distractions during your set business hours in order to maintain a good consistent working schedule.
7. Get out and meet people. As much of a freedom working at home is, it also can make you become an introvert. So there’s a need to be self-motivated by pushing yourself to get out of the house to have human interaction. It helps build relationships, fight loneliness and gives you a chance to meet new people. I haven’t done this lately and desperately need to get back to it, as it helped greatly for my mental health. I used to set up in local coffee shops at times where a girlfriend would bring her own laptop and we would brainstorm, which motivated productivity. My goal is to at least get out once a week to start.
8. Set up a schedule. It’s true working for oneself comes with the benefits of flexibility, but to see results and be successful, there’s a need to be disciplined (ties in with #6). Trust me, I know because some days, my work day ends up filling up with doctor’s appointments, cleaning, shopping and/or cooking. The key to getting things done is to keep a strict working hours schedule in order to maintain balance, thus avoiding falling behind which will only result in exasperation that can lead into self-defeating thoughts, and obviously will be counterproductive. Create daily work hours and stick to them.
9. Allocate time for reading and inspiration. Now that you’ve got that extra commute time on your hands, proper management of your time can be put to good use. Maybe take 30 minutes to an hour in the morning or noon time to read something inspirational and/or meditate to regain mental clarity.
10. Don’t rush into a business without considering/researching all the costs and factors involved, such as will you be required to pay taxes? Will you need to obtain a license or permit?
If you’ve been working from home for a while – what are some tips that you’d like to add to these 10? Please share in the comment box below.
P.S. Here are 5 easy steps to create a stylish clutter-free home office…