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In my experience, the main reason why people strive to work at home is because of the freedom it invokes. I’ve enjoyed this freedom myself for a few years now and there are upsides such as never setting an alarm clock, no commute, no time clock, no oddballs in the office to deal with, the list goes on and on.

I remember when I first set out to work from home, there were no “pie in the sky” numbers of $50,000 a month in my head. What was in my head was “GET ME OUT OF THIS OFFICE AND AWAY FROM MY BI-POLAR BOSS!” I had downsized my life already and needed a specific amount of income each month to stay at home, and ramp it up from their.

In the beginning, it was fairly easy to work from home and I was burning the mid-night oil. But, something happened. Boredom strikes. Isolation, no one to socialize with, bad habits settle in. Especially putting off something to later, which ends up tomorrow, which ends up whenever.

Then there are the family distractions, crisis situations within the extended family, phone ringing, friends stopping over, short errands that would end up turning into afternoons, etc. What I found all to common was how my “intended work time” would over-lap into my “free time” and vise-versa.

You Must Have A Schedule To Follow When Working From Home

After putting in a few months of your new work at home endeavor, you will find yourself with more and more tasks to get done, more and more income coming in, and if you don’t keep getting those tasks completed, the income can dry up. Or at the very least, dwindle down into an amount that is barely enough to live on, which is what happened to me.

What worked for myself in getting back on track is to ALWAYS have a work schedule made out for each day. I create mine the night before. Sometimes I put it into a spreadsheet, and sometimes I just write it down on a notepad.

When Creating Your Work From Home Schedule

1)      Create your “to do” list the night before, and prioritize your list

2)      Be sure to schedule in your break time and hold to it

3)      Don’t allow the phone, TV, e-mail, etc take you away from your tasks. A good “compass” would be to ask yourself “If I was in a corporate office, would I do this on corporate time”. Remember, doing wasteful activities with employers takes away from the employers bottom line. Wasteful activities in your home business takes away from YOUR bottom line. And that can get a little scary if you are depending on your work from home income to fully support your household.

4)      Enjoy creating your own schedule, after all, you get to choose your break time, your free time, your hours, how long your lunch will be, what days your work, etc.

One of the things I enjoy the most about being able to work from home is on some days I feel like working early in the morning and getting allot done by noon. Other days I don’t do much of anything in the morning and work afternoons late into the night. For me, it’s always been about FREEDOM.

Having that work schedule made out the night before with the exact tasks for the next day spelled out with the most important tasks prioritized has made my work days much more productive and effective.