9 Ways To Stay On Track When Working At Home

Working at home is the ideal second income for many people. Working at home can be a rewarding experience emotionally and financially, but it's easy to lose sight of running a successful business when it's just you, your computer and the distractions of home.

1. Structure Your Time

The problem a lot of people have with working at home is that they don't have a boss standing over them making sure they get their work done, or a tangible start and end of each workday. It's easy to let time slip by as you head to the refrigerator, catch a few minutes of TV before getting into it, or dive into a project, neglecting the other tasks you need to perform to keep your business running smoothly.

Create a structure for working at home that mimics the workplace. Structure your day so you have a start and finish time, with certain hours set aside for specific activities. A general rule is to spend the first hours each week prospecting for new clients. Send your marketing emails, write your letters and make your phone calls first thing so you don't forget to do it later.

2. Track Your Tasks

Live and die by your to-do-list. Try to have everything crossed off by the end of the day. Use Outlook or some sort of contact management software to serve as a visual reminder of what you need to accomplish that day.

3. Stay Connected

Carry an organizer wherever you go. If you're still using a day planner or similar dinosaur, consider upgrading to a Blackberry or other high-tech gadget. You don't need to go crazy and spend a lot of money, but invest wisely in something that will hold everything you need and allow you to instantly access it on the go. Working at home doesn't mean you are always actually at home!

4. Organize Your Family Time

Once your professional life is organized, you may need to consider organizing your personal life. Maybe you noticed right away, or maybe it's just becoming apparent, that when you are working at home, you tend to work around the schedule of your family members. This is especially true if you have children. If you're serious about running a homebased business and earning a decent income, you're going to have to make arrangements for childcare in or outside the home. Whether it's a partner, your parents, or a paid sitter, you need some uninterrupted time to focus, or your home business will never get off the ground.

5. Motivate Yourself

Sit down and set some goals for yourself. When you are working at home, it's important to keep track of whether or not you're making progress in your business. It's one thing to set small goals like completing your to-do-list, but you also have to set goals to motivate yourself to succeed. Begin by setting a goal to bring in the same amount of income (as an hourly rate) that you would at a regular job, and slowly raise the bar to increase your income by a couple of thousand a month.

6. Take Time Out For Good Behavior

It's not uncommon to find yourself working 60- to 70-hour weeks when you are earning a second income working at home. It can be tempting to work all the time when you start seeing how successful your business has become, but know when to relax. Take a break every now and then so you don't get burned out.

7. Be a Jack-Of-All-Trades

There are a lot of roles you play as a homebased business owner: You're the CEO, president, secretary, office manager and tech support. Learn the basic skills of running an office, including how to troubleshoot some rudimentary technical problems. You don't need to become an expert, but make sure you have a basic understanding of tech support issues, bookkeeping, and so on, otherwise it will become too expensive paying someone else to do everything for you.

8. Network

Network with other homebased business owners in either a formal or informal setting. This is a good way to find service providers, leads and potential clients. Surrounding yourself with people who also work from home will give you the support you need, and refer you to people who can help you grow your business.

9. Consider Moving Out Of Your Home

For a lot of people, working at home is a launching pad. In the beginning, many business owners work at home in order to keep overheads low. If you have more than one person with different roles working from your home office, you should ideally be working in separate rooms. At the point when your business becomes so successful that you cannot efficiently work close together, start considering moving your office outside the home.

It may seem strange, with all the benefits of working at home, that you might one day want to set up an office and lose those benefits. When your home business becomes highly successful, though, your second income is larger than your first income, and you have a growing number of staff, you may find that having your own space starts to look appealing!

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