Working from Home and Managing Your Time

Managing your time is always an important skill to have but, when you work from home, this becomes even more crucial while also being more difficult to accomplish. Some of the very reasons that working from home is attractive are the very things that can make it harder to maintain productivity and focus. Many people like the idea of running a home-based business because they like the flexibility in scheduling, not having to report to a boss and because they want to spend more time with their children. While these are great benefits, without proper time management those benefits can become hindrances.

Working from home often gives you tremendous flexibility when it comes to scheduling your work hours. You can easily adjust your hours around appointments or the children's school activities. You also have the opportunity to work when you are naturally the most productive such as early morning or late nights. The key thing to remember is that a schedule is still important to maintain even while remaining flexible. It's far too easy to get off track and miss deadlines if you don't set aside specific blocks of time to work on your business.

Time management means more than just setting aside a certain amount of time to work. It also includes knowing what tasks need to be done, how to prioritize those tasks and having specific goals with what you are trying to accomplish. You can schedule yourself to work for a four hour block of time but if you spend the first hour figuring out what you need to do, you've just cut your productivity by 25%. You need to start with an overall plan that includes very specific, detailed goals including time frames to keep you on the fast track towards success.

In order to set your detailed goals, you first need to evaluate where you are at right now and outline where you would like your business to go. When you plan your tasks, each one should be a step along that path. For example, say you want to be at a certain point within 30 days from now. You would write down each task that will get you from where you are now to where you want to be at the end of that month. Those tasks are going to be what you focus on during your work hours. When listing these tasks, make sure you also write down how much time each one will take on average. This list will help you plan what you do during the time you have scheduled each day.

If you develop good time management skills, you can avoid the extremes that many new home business owners end up doing. There are two common scenarios that we see all the time. The first is the person who hasn't scheduled her time or written any goals. She works very hard all day but gets sidetracked with distractions and at the end of the day realizes that very little actual work was accomplished. The other scenario that can be just as destructive to the home business is the person who works 90 hours a week, from early in the morning until late at night. They may accomplish more of their goals but it makes for a high burnout rate, not to mention a very unhappy family.