33 replies to this topic

[Googlewhacked]

Hey everyone,

I have recently accepted a new job (woot-woot!) and am now able to work from home 4 days out of the week.

While I am very excited about this, I am a little nervous, since I have never been able to do this before.

I am in the midst of straightening out my home office and removing as many distractions as possible, but I am wondering if anyone could offer any tips, tricks, etc. for successfully doing this?

Thx!

- GW



[Moved to "Running a Small Business" category.]

Edited by Jill, 03 November 2003 - 09:59 AM.

[websage]

My wife works full time from home. I am starting to learn from her. Few basic principles that will help you:

1. Have your plan for the day written the night before.
2. Allocate chunks of time for specific tasks, particularly if ongoing. I.e. have 30 for this forum but not more, or it can get out of hand.
3. Unless you have something scheduled already, start with a small accomplishable task so it can give you a sense that you have completed something.
4. Try to separate home business and business business or at least be aware where to draw the line.
5. Review in a week how it goes. Have a weekly to do list and derived from it a daily to do list, so continue monitoring and improving.

Have fun!

[OldWelshGuy]

Agreed on the above points WS,

plus treat your office like an office, take a tea break away from the office area, structure your time, if people call TELL THEM RIGHT OUT that you are working, or else they will suck your time away. People turn up at our place and Tracey says i am working, after a few minutes they ask, is he coming in then? she says 'he is working' they wouldn't dream at turning up at your office so why should they at home. Often i do call in for about a minute or so when they arrive to welcome them, then i say I have work to do now see you again, and off i trot.

controlling visitors is one of the big problems.

Start at a set time and structure your day.

Working from home will allow you flexibility (if there is a big game on tv then you can watch it, but will have to cover the time) NEVER do this on the fly as it will creep up on you as a bad habit, always plan ahead and arrange to work the time after your normal hours, this way you feel good in yourself , it gives discipline (which is the KEY word in working at home) and it will let all around you know what to expect and when.

Oh and get loads and loads of cakes and biscuits in and buy a cycle or a rowing machine to burn off the calories taken in from biscuit and cake eating

[Randy]

Websage and OWG covered all of the bases I think, so I'll only stress one point.

You will have to get yourself into a set routine. Just like you would show up at the office at 8am and leave at 5pm, you need to have something which is set for your work from home also. Not that it has to be a solid block of time mind you, it just has to be clear in your mind to the point that it becomes a daily routine.

The reason for doing this is two-fold. Partly to make sure you are devoting enough hours to get everything done. Partly to make sure you don't end up "working" 80 hours per week. Neither of those is a good thing.

[OldWelshGuy]

The other thing is, that if you do not structure your working day you will find it difficult to 'switch off' and subconsciously you could be storing up resentment for your home, where you will not see it as a place to live and relax, rather than a place of hard work and pain (I went there for a while a few years back)

[websage]

a place to live and relax, rather than a place of hard work and pain (I went there for a while a few years back)

And this comes from a guy who claims "work is fun" :-)

[OldWelshGuy]

It is now Websage , that was back in the days when i wore such stress items as a suit and a watch and a tie....... then i found the inner peace of only doing what i enjoy doing and now i am Mr laid back. :learn:

[websage]

You are an inspiration to many of us here, OWG!

[mcanerin]

Maintaining the "workplace" is really important (still working on it myself). If you don't "go to work" and "come home from work" consistantly you can find yourself either working too little (I'll do it later - I'm here anyway) or too much ("who are you? my wife? really? who are those short people making noise over there? kids? really? mine?")

I actually tell my kids that "I'm going to work now" and then go into my office and close the door. The door doesn't get opened until I need a coffee refill or lunch, whichever comes first. Ok, maybe fire alarms or other emergencies.

I'm still working on practicing what I preach here, since it's really easy to get distracted by, let's face it, things that are important to you. I can ignore a random co-worker, but it's way harder to ignore your family or home - after all - it's why you are working in the first place.

It gets better with practice - you stop feeling guilty over ignoring the little things and start remembering that it's ok to interupt yourself for the big ones. After all, that's one of the great things about working from home.

Ian

[websage]

I think what Ian is talking about will become more and more important to me as we expect our first baby. My wife has been working at home (with the exception of her business trips) very successfully -- she is very disciplined. I do work at an office but am hoping to sooner or later be able to move home and work from home too. I am however, not as disciplined as my wife

Does anyone have experience with having two spouses working from home? We are now redesigning the basement to make it into a shared office...

[dragonlady7]

I did read a very interesting thread on another forum, Webmasterworld I think, on the topic of both spouses working from home.
I know it wouldn't work well for me. At the moment I'm having no trouble ignoring my poor boyfriend, but I know after more than about a week of this we're going to start having friction over things. And if I were less interested in my project, I'd be bugging him all the time to inspire or entertain me, and he'd get mad.

But I think the most important consideration when working at home with a spouse is your personalities and relationships. If you work well together, then go for it, but if you ever find it difficult, you may be better off keeping your workplaces separate.

[Scottie]

My husband and I both work from home as of last May. It is working out wonderfully.

Basically, we've taken over the first floor of the house. The living room and dining room are the office and conference room and we have 7 networked computers, 3 phone lines, and 3 kids. We have a few part-time employees that come in throughout the week. It can get crazy. We had office space but moved everything back to the house. Bringing kids to the office was a bad idea.

I worked from home alone for a year and a half before we built my husband's business up to the point where he could spend full time here too. It has been WONDERFUL having him here. We take turns distracting the kids while the other is working and everything is much more flexible.

Looking back, this setup would have never worked with my ex-husband though. I think it very much depends on your relationship and how you work. I do a lot of work late, after everyone is asleep; David makes lots of phone calls during the day. It works well for us!

[OldWelshGuy]

Well as the business is both Tracey and myself we also work together at home, it has got a LOT easier now Lottie is full time in school, she is away from 9 to 3.20 pm it is superb.

Tracey loves working at home, she could watch me do it all day long

But as Scottie says, itit can work out swimmingly! It does here .

[qwerty]

I think I'm very lucky I don't have kids. Based on how I treat my cats, I'd spoil them terribly and never get any work done.

If I'm working away and Maya gets bored and starts crying, it's work be damned, I've got more important things to deal with

[deborah2002]

I only work for myself at night (I have the whole 9-5 thing at an actual brick and mortar place downtown). My boys know when bedtime is, and that means "Mommy's working".

I think I'm actually more disciplined here at home than at my "real" job. During the day, the other girls and I chat, have lunch, etc. Here, it's just me so I can concentrate much better. Plus, I know that I have only 3-4 hours to work with, so I try to get as much done as possible.

Working at home is great, I just can't wait til I can do it all day instead of just at night!

deb