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Working from Home - Tips to balancing work and home life
Balancing work and life, or as its popularly referred to
as The Work Life Balance.
Balancing your work and home life with a regular 9 to 5 is hard
enough, doing it when you work from home is FAR more
challenging. You will find that operating a home business will
bring to light many new challenges. Some of the best advice I
can offer is contained right here.
I love it when I see "work-at-home" programs on TV and on the
Internet displaying images of wealth and retirement associated
with their programs. They always show someone sailing on a yacht
sipping on champagne or swinging their "5-iron" on the back
nine, or relaxing in a hammock on some beach in the Caribbean.
They all talk about "taking back your life" and how much
time you can now have for family and the "important
things" in life. Working from home will FINALLY allow you
all the time you need to do personal and fun things. They make
it look as though with a minimal time investment you'll be
relaxing and "living large" in no time.
Well that's a "Big Brown Load" Lorraine. Let me break it
down...
Running your own home business certainly has its
benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. You're no idiot,
surely you realize there's good and bad in everything in life.
Believe me it's FAR better to be in control of your life and
your own destiny, but don't be fooled by those images of instant
wealth and retirement. These people are selling
something. Remember that Reggie!
You're smart enough to know there is a trade off with everything
in life. Nothing is perfect and I feel that if you're
going to succeed with your home business, you should be well
aware of what really awaits you as a work at home entrepreneur.
The big myth in running your own home-based business is
that it will allow you to spend more time with your family. Now
this is technically true - simply due to the fact that you will
be working from home means that you'll be around your family
most of the time out of default. But that doesn't necessarily
mean that time is "quality" nor "recreational" .
You must understand your HOME is now also your place of
BUSINESS. You make your own schedule, true, but this doesn't
mean you will have any more "free" time than you had if you
worked a regular 9 to 5.
Working from home presents time management challenges. At
home you have the opportunity for far more distractions
than in a traditional work place, i.e. the kids, spouse,
relatives, the bed, the dog, chores, TV, the doorbell, the bed,
phone, the couch, the refrigerator, the co-ed next door, the
bed, the gardening, the newspaper, the bed, the next installment
of "Harry Potter"...
Did I mention the bed...GET THE IDEA?
Homes, by nature, are a MINE-FIELD of distraction. These
distractions will limit the amount of actual free time you have
to spend with your family on true recreation. Now distractions
are unavoidable, falling prey to them is avoidable. In order to
keep focused on work you must create a work schedule and
stick to it. When it's time to work you must get to work.
So what can you do? You should keep a calendar, schedule
and to-do list. Utilizing Microsoft's Outlook program is the
BEST way to accomplish this. Outlook quite literally acts as
your personal assistant.
Just not as pretty...or handsome...depending on which way
your door swings.
Get up every morning and act as though you're going out to
work. Keep regular work hours and don't stray from them. All
these things combined, will help to minimize falling prey to
distraction.
Distraction will either take away from your leisure time or your
work time. Leisure time means less quality and work time means
less money, you can't afford either. If you adhere to this
you'll have plenty of time for both business and leisure in your
life.
I also suggest setting up your "office" someplace in your
home where you can have some privacy. Avoid setting it up in
your bedroom or other common area of the home. Find a location
where you will have ample room. Any place where you can lock
the door, and not be disturbed by household activity, is
optimal.
Running a successful business requires a serious time
commitment. If you don't spend time on business activities,
how can it possibly become profitable and flourish? I've never
met a wealthy business owner that didn't invest regular hours
into their business. Sure they play hard and take long
vacations, but it's all relative, because they put in 16-hour
work days when they're at work.
Do you think if Bill Gates only spent 20 hours a week developing
Windows he'd be the richest man in the world today? Maybe
tomorrow, but not today.
The bottom line is if you don't approach your home
business with realistic expectations you will certainly set your
self up for failure. Don't pay attention to the "Get Rich Easy"
scams. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
Be patient, stay focused, work smart, be flexible and again
BE PATIENT!
Read the rest of the article on the Starting A Home Business website.
© Copyright A Covert Operations, Ltd. 2005 - All rights
reserved.
About the author:
Duh Idiot's HomeBiz-StartUp-Guide, a website dedicated to
helping average individuals find EVERYTHING they need for starting a home business.
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