Q: After years of dreaming about combining my career and
family life by working from home, I'm finally ready to make the
leap. I'm just concerned that, without an office to go to every
day, I'll have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Any
advice?
A: If you're already having doubts, then working from
home may not be for you. While running a homebased business offers
tremendous freedom and flexibility, it also requires a high degree
of motivation, self-discipline and organization. Especially if
you're used to working for a big corporation where you have a
well-defined job description, employees who report to you or a
manager who closely supervises your work, you may find it difficult
to make the transition to being your own homebased boss. If, on the
other hand, your job gives you a fair degree of independence and
you're chafing at the bit for more, working from home could be
exactly what you're looking for.
Ask yourself the following five questions to find out if
you're really ready to work from home:
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1. Am I a jack-of-all-trades? Unlike working at a big
corporation that has resources and specialists to send bills, fix
computer problems and deal with problem employees, homebased
business owners typically have to figure things out on their own.
This means mastering the skills necessary to do your own
bookkeeping, tech support and hiring/firing-or finding a competent
bookkeeper, computer technician or HR service to help you. Even
though there are now many outsourced services for small and
homebased business owners, a solid grasp of QuickBooks, Microsoft
Office and the Internet will make you more self-sufficient and cut
down on professional services fees.
2. Am I comfortable setting my own schedule? If
you're used to showing up at an office every morning, operating
in an environment without set hours or an employer-imposed schedule
can be a difficult adjustment. While everybody claims to want
freedom, the truth is that most people are creatures of habit and
routine. That's why it's a good idea to create some sort of
schedule-even if it's artificial-to break up your day. For
example, if you start your day at 9 a.m., you could spend the first
hour checking your e-mail messages and making cold calls, then
tackle two hours of work before lunch. After lunch, you could make
another round of calls, then put in another four hours of work
before signing off for the day. Generally, it's a good idea to
work the same hours that your clients do.
3. Am I good at setting goals? Just like creating a
schedule can help structure your time, setting goals can give you
milestones to shoot for and tangible rewards for achieving them.
For example, when I was a homebased freelance writer, my first goal
was to make as much as I'd been making at my old newspaper job.
(Fortunately, that wasn't too difficult.) Then I started
raising the bar by $1,000 per month. Before long, I had eight
newspaper and magazine clients paying me a total of $8,000 per
month. As a reward for my hard work and self-discipline, I would
sometimes sneak off to see a movie in the middle of the day-the
ultimate writer's holiday!
4. Am I easily distracted? Some of the biggest challenges
of working from home are the constant distractions. While there may
be fewer meetings and less workplace gossip, there will be plenty
of other things that compete for your attention, from kids and pets
to housework, television and, of course, the refrigerator. It's
a good idea to set up your home office in a room with a door to
keep intrusions to a minimum.
5. Am I able to call it quits at the end of the day? No
matter how much work still needs to get done, it's important to
be able to call an end to your day. Even if you go back to the
computer after dinner to check your e-mail or do some writing,
it's important to set aside some time for your family and
yourself. Unfortunately, many people who start working from home
discover an inner workaholic they never knew was there. While you
may need to put in extra hours initially to get your business off
the ground, it's also important to strike a balance between
your work and family responsibilities.
Rosalind Resnick is the founder and CEO of Axxess Business
Centers Inc., a storefront consulting firm for startups and
small businesses. She is a former business and computer journalist
who built her Internet marketing company,NetCreations
Inc., from a two-person homebased startup to a public company
with $58 million in annual sales.