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For many people, there is no greater dream than to work at home. Whether through self-employment or working in a home office through an employer, anyone who has not worked at home full-time tends to envision a life of comfort and ease devoid of the aggravations of the workplace. However, working from home is not for everyone. Having been self-employed as a freelance writer for two years now, I can personally vouch for the amount of energy that must be expended in order to do this work successfully. Yes, you are the master of your own life - to a degree. The work must still get done, and unlike the days when you simply went to work at scheduled times and clocked in, then clocked out when told, your pay relies solely on your own productivity and self-control. How do you do that? In the first weeks of working at home it may seem easy, but the novelty will wear off. Without a good strategy for dealing with this drawback, your entire at-home employment could fail.

The first and possibly most important step is to set up a definite schedule for yourself. Don't just schedule work times. Rather, figure out a schedule for your entire day, complete with the time you'll be waking up, time allotted for personal hygiene and coffee in the morning, meal times, and bed time. Work with a planned schedule for a week or two, and if it doesn't seem to be working then don't be afraid to change it. You may have to change the schedule several times before finding a good equilibrium between work and the rest of life that will allow you to stick to the schedule.

Pick one or two days off every week and don't even touch work. Indulge in hobbies, read a book, watch some TV, go for a walk...whatever you do, don't go near the work or even think about work (if possible) for the entirety of your days off. Allow yourself to sleep in on your days off, and to go to bed late if it won't mess up your schedule for the rest of the week. A rest period is imperative to being able to keep to the schedule the rest of the week, as well as to remind you why you started this working at home thing in the first place.

Set up a designated work space. Especially if you catch yourself consistently being side-tracked or having difficulties regarding this work as a real job, make sure you have a devoted work area. If you don't have a separate room for an office which only contains the trappings of work, at least keep your desk clean and non-cluttered, and if possible position yourself so that you can see a

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