by Paul Lines

Created on: July 31, 2006   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

To ensure that you actually work when your self-employed is not always easy. The two most important issues to deal with are discipline and the environment. If you are not able to discipline yourself then it will be difficult. Additionally you need to create the right working environment. Set aside a place within the house that is your workplace and ensure that the rest of the family are aware of this.

Once armed with these important elements, there are several things that you can do to help yourself.

1) List the tasks. You need to write out a list of tasks that need to be completed during the week. These tasks will include the actual work itself and also all the other work related items, such as letter writing, invoicing, your bookkeeping, advertising etc. Make sure you have included everything.

2) Plan carefully. Set a time-table. Allocate the tasks into daily slots during the week, ensuring that you have provided enough time for them to be properly completed. For example if you know that a particular work task will take three hours, do not try and cram it into two. Similarly, if there are work deadlines you need to ensure that this work is placed in a time space well in advance of the deadline, so that you do not have to rush it at the end. You may also find that administration work is better done at the end of the day as you wind down, and that writing up your books could be fitted in as the last task of the week.

3) Create a definition between work and family time. Do not be tempted to extend the hours that you have allocated for work. It is all too easy to say "I will just once spend an extra hour." If you allow it to happen once, it will happen again. The end result for you may be more money, but the end result for your family is being deprived of time to spend with you.

4) Be tidy. It is vitally important that you are tidy and organised with your work. The worst thing that can happen when working at home, is to allow yourself to spread your work around the house. None of your family would want to see your work encroaching in the bathroom when they are trying to have a relaxing soak. Organisation is important too. It might seem pointless to tidy your work at the end of the day, but it will be so much easier and nicer to return to in the morning.

5) Make sure that you have a work phone and connection in you place of work in the house. It is not pleasant or good for business for your clients to try and talk to you against a backdrop of the television or radio blaring out. Similarly it is not fair on your family to be asked to keep being asked to be quiet or turn the TV down because you are on the phone working during their recreation time.

Discipline, a true work environment and organsition are the key issues to ensuring that you actually can work from home.

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