3 Tips to Avoid Insanity When You Work From Home

There are so many benefits from working from home, and yes, you can make do with a lot less than our corporate counterparts. That doesn’t make us direct sales/home party people any less successful—did you know the computer giant Dell founder, Michael Dell worked out of his garage to build his empire? And that Tastefully Simple founder Jill Blashack Strahan assembled gift baskets on the pool table of her backyard shed?

BUT, there are some things that you should have, not just because they will add greatly to your bottom line, but because it will keep you SANE!

1. A Separate, Dedicated Workspace. Whether it’s your garage, spare bedroom, or a shed in the backyard, an area off the den, you will need a space that’s just for work.

2. A Fast Internet Connection. For businesses based online, this is non-negotiable. Your internet connection should be fast enough to support online activity and VoIP calls (if you have an internet-based phone system as your method of business communication.) If you have cable—upgrading your internet is relatively cheap. Do it ASAP.

3. A Door, Earplugs,  or “Do Not Disturb” sign.  If you can’t physically separate your workspace from the rest of the house, you can mentally separate it by using earplugs to tune out audio distractions, or a folding screen to tune out visual ones.

If you’re working while others are at home, make sure they know when you’re “unavailable.” Don’t laugh—when my my daughter was just a kiddie, I used to put on this funky hat and that signaled to everyone that I was ‘working’. It is a lot better than ‘shushing’ them or expecting them to notice you are in deep thought or conversation.

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One Comment

  1. Lyrick718 November 3, 2009

    This is great advice. Working from home can be great, help keep you sane and also break up the commute and daily routine. One of the things I found from being in the office so much is my ‘routine’ needs to change when I’m at home. Nothing is the way it is at the office and that takes some getting used to.

    Another thing that’s important is learning to separate work from home activities which is hard to do when you live and work in the same place. I find that giving myself a cut-off time for work helps. I designate 8:00am – 8:00pm as ‘work’ time and don’t take calls or handle work related issues before or after that timeframe. This enables me to know there’s a start and an end to my work day and helps balance my work vs. play time.

    Great advice, thanks Rina!