3 Steps to Staying Productive in Your Home-Based Business
by Carrie Hinkel on February 1st, 2008
As many entrepreneurs know, working from home isn’t as easy as it seems. Being in control of your own time and freedom is powerful, but if misused you could find yourself watching TV, playing with the kids, surfing the internet, talking on the phone with friends – and wondering why you didn’t get anything done all day. Working from home is filled with all sorts of luring temptations – and the only way to stay productive during your workday is to give in to them as little as possible.
Being productive means getting the most amount of work done in the shortest amount of time. While the reward for that as an office employee just means more work, the reward for a productive day at the home office could mean increased profits for the week by as much as 15% – and that’s money that goes right into your bottom line!
How to get productive in 3 easy steps:
Schedule work hours – It’s nice to fantasize about waking up in the morning at your leisure and walking twenty paces in your pajamas to the office. But, in reality, a productive day means a scheduled day. It not only gives you structure for a working mindset, it lets friends and family know when you are working (and not available to socialize). Of course, working from home allows you to set your hours whenever you want. You can choose to work the hours that suit you best, say 6am-11am and then 7pm-9pm, or stick with the usual 9am-5pm workday. Then let your clients, friends and family know your schedule and add your office hours to your business’ voicemail and website.
Limit internet networking and e-mails – Online business socializing sites, business blogs and email can be crucial for making contacts, solidifying relationships and building your business; but if you’re not careful, they can easily overtake your workday. Answering emails could take up 2-3 hours of your day if you’re not careful. Try to limit emails and internet networking to a specific amount of time per day or per week. If you keep your email program closed all but during your specified “checking times”, you will be amazed at how much your productivity will increase during the day.
Plan out your day/week/month – With a schedule of tasks already laid out for you, you’ll have trouble convincing yourself that “there’s nothing to do”. Each day you should have a list of things to get done. You should also have longer-term goals laid out for each week and for the month. The best way to do this is with a dry erase board for your office wall. That makes the jobs easy to see and you’ll feel productive as you cross each one off the list.
Now that you have the tools necessary to make the most out of your stay-at-home workday, you just need to put them into action. Remember why you wanted to work at home in the first place – being productive will help you to achieve those goals even faster.