Working from home brings many advantages in terms of flexibility and comfort. You can work when you want, have a break when you want, listen to your choice of music and spend your working day in your pajamas if you want to.
As liberating as all this is it's important not to equate working from home with being on holiday and drift into a way of life where work is either not done or done badly.
Assess yourself
When in the position of deciding how and when you work you have the potential to increase the quantity and quality of what you do exponentially by structuring the way in which you work.
When you work for someone else there are set break times, the environment is not in your control and you cannot fully control who you meet or interact with during the day.
Companies have systems of organization which you adhere to and these systems are designed to produce maximum efficiency across a work force but on an individual level the chances are that you won't work to maximum efficiency in any structure that isn't created specifically for you.
The key to maximizing your efficiency is to build a clear and honest picture of your ability to concentrate upon your work. Do you work better at night or right away when you get up? How often do you need a break from a session of work and how long do those breaks need to be? If you slot in household or personal tasks into your breaks do you still feel as refreshed as when you play a game or get going with some physical activity?
Different aspects of work
If for example you had a home business making handbags you might divide your time between making the bags, promoting them to potential customers and managing the accounts for your sales of the bags.
It's likely that the extent of your ability to concentrate will differ for each activity. Many people find accounts dull and can only concentrate on them for short periods of time, if this is the case then a separate strategy needs to be made for working on accounts. This specific approach might be the construction of prearranged slots in the day where the accounts are worked on and a rule of no distractions such as music playing during those slots of time.
When it comes to activities which you find easier to do then you may play music or even watch a film as you work. Often when working in an office environment concentration on repetitive tasks is difficult even though they are technically easy. By carefully managing your environment and working methods during any task which is repetitive or easy you can prevent boredom from setting in and destroying your concentration.
Research
One person's ideal working environment would be an utter disaster for another, research different ideas and try them out for yourself. Experiment with different structures and assess their effect on your ability to work.
It's important to be honest as you go, you may like the idea of having a bonsai garden next to your monitor or allowing yourself to drink beer with your lunch but if these things have a negative impact on your concentration and work then you are going against yourself by creating a structure that isn't suited to you and that won't allow you to maximize your abilities.
Decide your own breaks
Many people with structured working hours assume that those who work from home have it easy and they equate being able to structure your own free time with being able to take a break whenever they wish to speak to you or visit you, this is a recipe for disaster.
Working from home does give much more freedom when it comes to social arrangements but if you adopt an open door policy with friends and family you will end up with a constant stream of interruptions as people use the flexibility intended to make your life easier to better suit themselves.
Certainly you can be more flexible than most people, you may well spend more time with friends and family than you would have done when working a nine to five job but you cannot let other people decide when you are going to work and not.
Be firm with loved ones and friends and encourage them to appreciate the additional flexibility you have to socialize with each other and not to complain about what they would ideally want the situation to be. Remind them that you are not on holiday or retired but working and that your home is now doubling as your place of work.
Temptations
For some people the mere fact that they are surrounded by opportunities to relax is sufficient distraction to negatively impact the work they do. It may be playing on the Internet, talking on the phone or taking an extended break to go shopping. The fact is that if you can decide your own hours then you can fall into the habit of skipping work in order to do these things when you want for as long as you want.
You can separate yourself from temptation to an extent by having a room to work in which is free of distractions but if that still can't override the urges then the way to establish control is to think in terms of your agenda.
If you don't do your work then you won't make any money or improve your business, whatever your work relates to will degrade or at the very least not progress.
If you want to hang everything and go shopping then think clearly about whether you can justify it. Have you got the time to go or are you avoiding work? If the latter is true then weigh up your business and financial security against that new pair of shoes or sitting in the garden with a beer or calling a friend to chat.
If you were offered financial security and your business or the relaxing activity then which would you choose? Visualize clearly the different weightings of the two and how important they are to your life.
Self management and control is inseparable from this ability to accurately appreciate the value of one thing against another.
You want to do your work and have the advantages that will result from it but you also want the break, in this way a clash of interests can seem to exist. By accurately assessing the situation however you can see that doing the work is also what you want and in fact you want it much more. You can also see that the break can be worked into the structure at another time or for a shorter time and this eases the clash further.
Self discipline is often seen as a virtue that you either have or don't, realistically self discipline is a skill that can be learned and improved.
Self discovery
Creating your own working hours and methods is extremely empowering as it puts a major aspect of your life very firmly within your control, it's up to you to determine how well you will do.
The process of examining your abilities and then maximizing them whilst identifying and circumventing your weaknesses is extremely positive and will in itself improve the way you view yourself and live your life.