How to Overcome The Scheduling Dilemma: Setting Home-Based Office Hours

One of the biggest dilemmas that people who run a home-based business face is keeping their home life and their work life separate; however, it is very important to do so if you want to keep them from colliding into one another. The best solution to remedy this problem is to start your day as if you are heading off to a real job.
So, what does this entail? It really depends on what you would do if you had to leave your home to go to work. You may want to grab a cup of coffee, read the morning paper, catch a news program or listen to a little music. Now, you would probably do those things anyway, but you should also add in things that you otherwise would not have to do right away, since you work from home.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Daily Planner
• Home Office

1. Get Ready For Work
   
   Take a shower, get dressed in casual business attire, and give yourself a time to have this all done, a time that you should ‘be’ at work, and stick to it. It should be a time that any other business professional would start, around 8 or 9 AM. Timing is important because if you are late, your entire day may be off and you may end up with less available work time than you had planned. If you’re a female, you may even want to do your hair and put on a little make-up; whatever you need to do to get your mind ready to focus on your workday.

2. Go To Work
   
   If at all possible, keep your home-based office in a place that is as cut off from the rest of your home as possible. Make sure you have everything you need such as drinks and snacks, before you go to your office so you don’t have to get up and wonder around the house. Only leave your office for restroom stops and scheduled breaks.

3. Set Your Hours
   
   Keeping a schedule and preparing to work helps make a big difference for people who work from home. Working from home takes discipline and a willingness to motivate yourself, but, if you lack these things, you are setting yourself up for failure. When you work from home, you are still working; so you must treat it like a job in every way. This includes how you start you day.

Tips & Warnings

• Doing these little things each morning will help you get into ‘work’ mode and let the rest of your family know that you mean business. When you are working, you are ‘at’ work as much as anyone else and they should respect that. This will also help you keep your family life and work life separate, because your spouse and kids will be reluctant to bother you while you are working once they ‘get’ it and this will help them ‘get’ it.

[esperd]

on 7/9/2009 nice

[wirelessjen]

on 1/5/2009 I still need to decide what schedule I'll be able to manage while raising my children. Good article.

[BodyLogique]

on 11/18/2008 Good advice. Well presented. Thank you!

[Janey]

on 10/28/2008 I tend to be pretty hard on myself if I don't stay disclipined. One thing that helps me is to do all my errands on one day. That's my "day off."

[leanan]

on 10/25/2008 Great tips. it is harder than one thinks to keep yourself on track ;)