|
Topics & Tips
Business Success
Schedule Your "Work From Home" Business Success
A lot of people dream of running their own “work from
home” business. Success at that would be a beautiful
dream! They dream of setting their own hours, working
when they want to work and with whom. The reality is
that very few of these people ever take the time to
ensure that they have the right skill set - the right
tools - to make the leap to a home-based enterprise.
The major pitfall that most new “work from home”
business owners face is a lack of scheduling discipline.
They just don't plan out their work days. This can cause
problems in two ways, under-working and overworking.
Let's look at the first one, "under-working."
It's very easy to sit at home, on the ol' PC surfing the
web. You might intend on working on your new website or
putting up auctions on eBay. |
But, before you know it, you've spent the entire day
reading email and surfing for the latest news and
gossip. Sure, you were online and you were doing
something, but the things you were doing are not the
things that will put a dime in your bank account.
Overworking is pretty easy to understand. Some
people simply don't know how to keep business hours.
When they work from home, the temptation is there to
"work 'til you drop." That's not good, especially if you
are building your home-based business on the side and
still work a day job. If you spend all your time
working, you'll soon feel that you're never getting any
"down time," and burnout is sure to follow. Believe me,
I know all about this one. |
|
|
Here's the solution.
You must be very disciplined in planning your
day. Write down what you need to accomplish every day
and how long you will work on each item. Be sure to
include downtime in your plan - time for your family,
relaxation, exercise, whatever. This is important. After
all, you're building a home-based business to build a
lifestyle, not to become the richest person in the
cemetery!
Your daily plans and goals need to be very
specific. It won't do you any good to write
something like, "work on project x." What does that
mean? How exactly do you "work on something?" Your plan
needs to include a definite finishing point, such as
"write a new article on dog grooming for page one of the
website." See the difference? You can "work on" a
project for years and never reach a point where you've
had any success. By contrast, when you "write an article
on x," you know you're done, as soon as you've typed the
final period.
If you're in a marketing business, try to farm out as
much of the non-marketing related work as you can
afford to do. For example, if you sell products or
services, it might be beneficial for you to hire someone
to help build and maintain your website. The money
you'll spend to have someone else do it will be more
than offset by the amount of time it will free up. Other
areas you can outsource might be bookkeeping, mailing,
etc.
Be realistic when planning your day. If you're
still working your day job, schedule that from the time
you get up in the morning until you get home from work.
Don't forget to include commute time. Then, plan out
your evening accordingly. Don't schedule a four hour
task to be completed in one hour. It won't happen. If
you have huge tasks, break them up as much as possible
and schedule your time accurately. This will allow you
to have a feeling of accomplishment and you'll get a lot
more done in the long run.
Don't multi-task. I know that this is the latest
"buzzword," but, in reality, multi-tasking is one of the
leading killers of productivity for most people.
Schedule only one project at a time. You can work on
more than one project during the day, but you shouldn't
work on more than one project at a time. It's very
difficult, if not totally impossible, to serve two
masters at the same time. Give one project your
undivided attention. Once you've completed that task,
move on to another task on that project or to another
project.
You should also be a little flexible in your
scheduling. In any business, there are bound to be
interruptions that you couldn't possibly have planned
for. In home-based businesses, the chance of distraction
goes up exponentially. You'll be working on that hot new
project, only to have the toilet overflow or a neighbor
ring the doorbell. Plan on it. There will be things that
happen that you can't plan for. That's why your schedule
needs to include a little cushion.
What I like to do is plan out the items I want to get
done and overestimate the time it will take
to do them, by say 10%. Then I have other items which
are "on deck." These items aren't quite on today's
schedule, but I want to do them soon. If I complete all
of my scheduled tasks for the day, I simply look to see
what's on deck and start on one of them. It's a bonus.
Sometimes, no matter how well you plan, you
just won't finish what you schedule. It happens to
everyone. That's when you simply revise your schedule
for the next day to include the missed item(s). Don't
get hung up on the fact that an item or two didn't get
done as planned. Just take it in stride and keep on
moving forward. Now, if you find yourself routinely
missing your deadlines, you'll need to re-evaluate your
scheduling. Are you being realistic in your time
allotments? Probably not. Adjust accordingly.
Here are just a few tips to help you maintain sanity and
get your work done. With a little planning and a little
effort, you can balance your home life with your “work
from home” business. Success will literally be that only
a schedule away from you!
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dane Infosearch is committed to helping ordinary
people become
extraordinary business people. This site aims to
give you articles
& information that we found useful in building
our businesses.
AND we’ll teach you how to successfully search
for information
on the internet.
Sign up for our FREE 'Guide to Research the Web
Successfully!'
Get more information at our website:
www.daneinfosearch.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Site owners and ezine editors– please feel free
to reprint this article
in its entirety as long as you do not modify the
content, and you include our resource box as it
is.
Let us know if you do use this article, so we
can take a look. Thanks.
|
|
