Working from home - it can ruin your life and business if you let it.

My answer was simple...

Unless I'm on a deadline (rare since I got out of consulting), when my wife gets home from work, my work day is over.

As they say, "happy wife, happy life"

I think it's an easier problem to avoid when you've been working at it for a while, making decent money and the financial pressures are off.
I used to be terrible as a newbie, with the pressure of having to make some money quickly I'd spend 16-18 hrs a day glued to the computer.....not a healthy way to live life!

I dont work at home (unfortunatly) - but for me i hate working for other people, so working 16 hours from home for my self would be a dream come true. I did however book a week off work and did some IM (or building websites for adsense) and i loved it - the freedom and answering to no one. I woke up at 10am and worked until 8pm and felt great for it because i still got to take breaks (work out / go running / play games) between the article writing and backlinking).

When i get out the slave system and work from home i would imagne playing games and working from my girlfriends would be my outlet and detach from the work-home situation. I simply cant stand working 9-5:30 5 days a week 50 weeks a year where someone "owns me"... detest the thoughts completly;

I agree with ya'll rooze and solado, I started almost 4 months ago and my current goal is to quit my job and live solely off IM. I'm living with my parents right now while I go to school and they are telling me if I don't work 40 hours a week for 40 years what am I going to do in that free time..

I tell em I'll probably start going to the gym, join some kind extra activity like martial arts or for me krav maga which is what I want to try.. and probably go to a better university.

As far as my routine I wake up every day around noon, work on IM for about 2-3 hours, take a break get back on it at night around 11pm till 3am. It's going pretty well so far but I will be changing it heavily when I graduate in 3 months.

I also add at least 1-2 days a week of just chilling and not getting on the computer at all. This helps me from burning out.

Hmm, the way I deal with this is that I don't have a schedule, so I just do the work that I have whenever I want to, if I want to. However, as someone mentioned above, I can do this because I don't have any financial pressures.

I am aware though that having a schedule and actually working from 10AM to 4PM for example on my business would greatly improve it.

I am not going to lie I am a workaholic that has problems separating my home life and online life. The crazy part is I don't want to change, not until I am at the income level I desire.

im just beginning to work from home a bit and i have to say its very difficult. for example today i slept a little bit too much and didn't get too much work done. i like the whole idea of having your office in the garage. my office is in my bed room, that's basicly the worse thing ever. hard to get work done.

I've been working at home for the past 3 years and I love it. I recently was able to set up my office in my basement so I'm able to work in quiet environment away from the family noise.

To stay motivated while working I listen to positive talk shows or books on disc, and usually try to catch Dave Ramsey in the morning.

I manage my time by not managing, I know what needs to be done each day.
I start off by waking and then checking emails. sifting through the important's
and not so. Then I check a few important things on my sites. After all is said is done, its been about two hours. Now I break, run errands have a little fun, usually home by 1 or 2 p.m. and get back on the cpu. Do do some marketing some building and then check emails again. I check on my virtual workers to make sure none have flown the coupe.
Now I have the warriors which I have committed about a hour a day too.

By the way, Im single so I have it really easy lol.

Hey Rooze,

This is a really important discussion! I have a large & noisy family and only rarely get daytime hours alone. These hours are very precious.

It's really important to have worked out a list of monthly targets for your business, & then how you're going to achieve them. Thus you'll have a list of tasks in order of priority. Then, every spare hour you have, you'll know what your main money-making task is for that time slot. Be very focused with the time you do have available.

For me, this can mean squeezing things in in the evenings when the kids are in bed. I frequently set the alarm clock for 3.30am as most of the webinars I participate in are at 4 am local time!! Then I make use of the long summer daylight hours & keep working until the family gets up.

For 4 years now, Ive been walking from my bed, to the computer and back again, usually putting in 15 hour days. 7 days a week.

This doesnt include the 4 years before that doing the same, whilst I was working a full time job.

I used to be in a industry where I had to work for long/odd hours for 6 days a week. I had a fixed salary with no bonus whatsoever so I was struggling financially and my wife was not happy at all about me being an absent husband and dad for our little daughter... So I was forced to come up with a solution and the solution was getting into the IM world and work from home (a typical thought it was for people like me).

To cut long story short, I ended up making fairly good money with IM so I finally quite my day-job and started to work from home. I worked purely from home for about 2 years. Yes, I basically enjoyed it (much better than my previous situation) but with my little daughter always around and my wife depending on me to do things around the house all the time, it was hard to focus on my work and also started to loose the "boundary" between "work" and "family life"...

Then one day, my daughter said to me, "Daddy, I want to play with you but you are never with me...". That actually hit me real hard. I realized often times I was not present with my daughter (even with my wife) because I was thinking about my business all the time. My excuse was.. "C'mon, I'm trying so hard to make more money for my family! Can't you see that?!"...

Now I mainly do offline consulting as an SEO and I made long-term contracts with a couple of large local clients in such a way that I go to their office and work there for 3-4 days a week, rather than working 100% from home.

This has been working very well for me because I can focus on my business there, while I still have a "flex" work time agreement with them so I can work from home whenever I choose to do so... And this has given me more balanced life between my "work" & "family" life and i can still work on other smaller clients or my own IM projects in my spare time as well. Besides, my social life got better as I enjoy interacting with people in the office. Needless to say, my family is happier now

I learned that working from home successfully takes a lot more discipline, flexibility and good life management.

Additional comment - I actually outsource a fair bit of my work nowadays and that has been making my life a lot easier for sure

My schedule helps me out a lot. I'm a night owl so I get the majority of my work done from about 10 PM til about 4 AM. I wake up at 10 - 11 AM and have a fairly normal day and don't really have a ton of trouble separating work from "life". I still get to have lunch with friends, train some martial arts or whatever else the day calls for. You can't beat it, in my opinion.

I just got a 9-5 since i can do that and build my IM biz and meet with prospective JVs in my niche. from 9-5 my CRACKberry keeps me connected and I try and build as much as I can during the 9-5 even its just product creation outlines

Keeping "work time" and "family time" separate is tough... I'm seriously considering leasing an "Executive Suite" a mile from my house.... It would be an additional expense, but being out amongst people and the increase in productivity would be worth it.....

All the Best,

Rich

Choosing the environment in which to work from is not a problem but the impact of the environment on your managerial skills is what matters. A good manager will always be a good manager despite changes. Working from home will definitely add you some extra time i.e. time spent on travelling to your place of work. You can add this extra time in your work input or still, split it equally between your work and home affairs.

Whenever I had to study for finals (or any other big test), I'd bring all the materials to places like Starbucks or Ihop, depending on urgency and the time of day. I find it MUCH easier to focus when I'm not lounging around at home - I pick the location of where I work, but am out of the house when I do.

Having a laptop and USB drive makes this task MUCH easier.

Sampling efforts? QUE?????????

Have you even read this thread? :confused:

Create a schedule with clear tasks for each day.

Keep to set hours.

Use software or a simple timer to keep yourself on task. No checking personal email, facebook, etc. during your work hours.

Have clear goals in mind and write them down. Don't write down too many. Have a longer time-scale in your mind but most of us are immediate thinkers and want to think about what we have to do right now. Write those things down that you need to do right now or in the course of the day.

It's best to actually work outside of your home, I firmly believe, but outside of your bedroom should be the minimum (unless you live in a studio, out of luck there!).

This is to help you mentally separate work from play. I think you get what I mean.

Also apparently you sleep easier if your bedroom is used only for sleeping and nothing else (beyond the obvious for those with partners).

Don't go to sleep worrying about your work and this is easier to do if you don't physically work in your sleep space.

Above all, be disciplined. For how to be disciplined, buy a well-reviewed product about time management and task conquering if you must. However you go about it, find that discipline and routine.

Lastly, have scheduled breaks. Get fresh air. Exercise. Take meal breaks but eat light when you still have work to do so as not to get too tired and sleepy because you are digesting a big meal.

These are some tips just off the top of my head...

I take it over to your local neighborhood coffee shop like Starbucks and get the job done!

Working too much is about the only issue I have had so far after quitting my day job about 2 months ago. Otherwise, I tend to stay fairly focused as I make a list of important tasks (tasks that will actually grow my business!) first things in the morning and tick them off as I finish them.

Sorry if this was already mentioned - I had to skip to the bottom as I don't have time right now to read all th rest of the answers, but i found a free report from a guy who also has an app that is very useful.. Google thefocusmaster and download his report and his timer app... VERY useful and when you read the report it's a real eye opener on internet productivity!

I think self management and outsourcing can solve the problem of working overtime for anyone who works at home. Even if you really enjoy what you do, you still have to have time off to rest and regroup! so discipline, Scheduling, managing your time effectively and Delegating are crucial to productiveness and well being.

What about the social aspect of it. Not exactly a thriving Christmas work party atmosphere either. Yesh agreed. It's takes iron discipline for it to work. You can quickly get lost on the Net all day and most of the night, weekends etc....It does become addictive

Reading all the posts in this thread actually makes me want to start putting a line between my personal life and my business, since they're pretty connected. I just realized how weird it is to go out with my girlfriend and have my head constantly thinking about my business, and also talk with her about it. Talking with her actually helps, but I tend to do that when we go out to a movie, restaurant, etc.

Work from home is not easy. I personally prefer work far from home. But as a beginner, I think home is best place, because that time you don't earn a lot of money. But when you become expert and handle so many work, you will face difficult in home. So, I will prefer work outside from your home.

I too want to break family life and working life.

I think a lot of us have the same problems, its a fine balance. On one hand we all want to build our businesses to the level we are happy with and so we work non-stop to get there.

I personally walk from bed to my computer and work 10-12 hours a day. I break for food but sometimes skip meals when i'm really busy, this is not good. Luckily i live with my girlfriend so can't skip too many meals.

Having worked for many companies and been stuck in many offices, i still prefer to work from home, at least i decide who i spend my time with. Now i just need to get my income up to that level to relax. I think most people involved in IM are workaholics.

It all depends with an individual. Working at home should not affect your job nor your life at all. It should, in fact, be of an advantage to your job and even yourself. The time spent on travelling ( with traffic jams) to and from your workplace can be consolidated to increase your job input and your extra rest. It only needs serious management.

Besides all advantages and freedom that comes with 'Work from Home', the only bad thing i have observed, is becoming Anti-Social. Like most other IMer's, i spend a lot of time on the internet and this is something which is constantly cutting me off with my social contacts. I have already reached a stage of 'Financial Freedom', still i am working like a pig :p

Being social is really important, and nowadays i am trying to cut off on my daily working hours, to find some time for friends and family... So, far so good and i will continue to do this (without ruining my I.M business).

*On topic: i have managed to get a small office space where me and my partners sits for few hours a day and do gossips and little bit of work. In this way, i am still working in a 'Office', but the only difference is, i am not being a slave for my boss, but working for my own profits.

I've worked at home for the past 5 years (my entire career) as I worked for a FTSE100 company that encouraged home working. I guess as I've never worked in an office I find it hard to draw comparisons and differences. However what I always did was plan and have a strict timeline around my activities. Once my days work was complete I called it a day and never went on to something else. I find this allowed me to determine a finite end to each day.

Also, I always allowed myself breaks through out the day, this may of been to watch a bit of TV or walk around the block. At first I felt guilty about this but then I thought I'm not getting all those tea and cigarette breaks that those in the office are, nor am I gathered around the water cooler or at someone elses desks chatting about the match last night or what was on TV. They got to have breaks so why shouldn't I? This really allowed me to stay refreshed and focussed.

Cheers

G

I would like to add something important here..
There are some things we were taught to do and certain rules we were taught to follow from when we were young. Like work for example, work has it rules. It has amount of hours per day where you are placed in a a situation where you are surrounded by people who are not your family, place where you are not allowed to put your feet on the table and other things which are always a reminded - you are not home, you are at work. These things define work. So, with this kind of education we found it really hard to do our work at home, without taking a nap and watching that show that we wanted to watch etc etc . So basically thanks to that education we were used to work at work and relax at home. So it is basically against our nature if i might say so, to work at home, to mix two things that were brought to us as separate and different. So in my point of view, i have more respect for those who manage to work hard at home without having trouble separating family life and work. But if you ask me,i think i would need a schedule too ; )))

don't let your bussiness ruin your life. Your doing a business because you have a goal for your self and to your family. If your life nor family is broken, what will you do to your business?

There are some great comments in this thread.
And I see now that it's so very easy to mix a home based business
and personal life in sometimes adverse ways.
Best to at least realize the potential for a problem,
so you can be more aware of not letting the business
life dominate everything.

Working from home has always been a struggle for me, and actually creating a better schedule for myself is one of my New Year's Resolutions!

The only way for me to separate work and family is to follow a schedule. I am a stay at home mom to 2 young kids, and I am trying to be better about not working while watching them (not like that is even possible...)

My husband is home in the mornings so I work then, and again after the kiddos are in bed. On his days off I might pop over to the library or a coffee shop to do some work. Sometimes a change of scenery is a huge help, especially since I don't have the luxury of a home office. My goal is to always focus on work when it is time to work, and focus on family at all other times!

I actually roomed with a 9-5er friend.

I asked him to wake me up when he did, so i synced up with his routine.

When he would leave, i would be making breakfast, and get to work.

Then i started using XMind - Mind Mapping and Storming

(I love that software for mind mapping stuff i have running around in my mind.)

Basically i created a circular mind map that i follow clockwise.

I always start with the most tedious things, like bills, travel related scheduling (i am constantly on the move), stuff i help my family and friends with etc.

(all that stuff drains you of energy if you let them accumulate.)

then i move to things like "follow ups" with clients and stuff like that. (my main business is import/export)

then i move to IM stuff, on the tech side, websites, research etc

then i usually move to writing

then around 4:15pm i go Crossfitting.

I have found that if im not in shape/training i go completely out of my mind.

W.e. you do though, just set up a routine, that you can follow at least 4 weeks. THEN adjust, but you HAVE to be able to set some type of consistency, be it a little weird and inefficient at 1st.

My life completely changed once i kinda "parented" myself to do that.

Independent entrepreneurs have to understand we are both the mentee and mentor to ourselves. Thats the price to pay independence. ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND BEING A BADASS IS WORK DUDERS!!

hope that helps bro let me know watcha think.

Great post. I believe its all about disciple and focusing single minded on the task. I use the Eat That Frog system by Brian Tracy to utilize time well. I have also created very important but easy to accomplish tasks in every area of life spiritual, relationships, mental and emotional health, physical health and financial freedom. I won't let a day go by without doing something in these areas, even for example one push up is better than nothing. Also the bigest obstacle is yourself so don't be critical, judge, or out yourself down the good is always there no matter how bad it looks, this attitude grows with faith.

I think some of it has to do with who you are as a person. Some people thrive on the office environment - talking to people, going to lunch etc. Others (myself included) love what others see as isolation when working at home. I've been working from home for over 20 years. It was wonderful all the time my children were growing up (my oldest is now 22). I worked all the time...except when I needed to do something with/for them or my husband or other pieces of life needed attention. I never compartmentalized - I just let it all flow together. It works for me. But here's what I find so funny. My oldest wants nothing to do with being an entrepreneur. He wants to have a job that he can go to and then go home and forget it. My 19-year-old wants nothing to do with having a "regular" job. He is determined to work for himself. I believe everyone needs to do what fits their personality.

It will largely depend on people’s circumstances; some are single, others are married with small children; others live in large houses where they can afford to have one room as an office while others use the corner of the living room as the office.
It will also depend on the level someone is in IM. A person making $10,000 or more a month may work less than one struggling to make the first $1000 online.
That said, let me assume a person only has the corner of the house as the office and has young children. This is how one would separate work and family life to avoid ruining either…
1. Seek the cooperation of your family.
2. Adjust your working hours-late in the night or early in the morning when people are asleep.
3. Schedule to have uninterrupted family sessions or working time.
4. When you have urgent tasks to finish but, there are visitors around, seek ways of going to a library, coffeehouse or lock yourself somewhere.
Whatever way one may want to look at, in my opinion family comes first.

great advice

Working at home - this is the future of the economy of outsourcing. All economic indicators have shown their efficiency in the home. It is comfortable, it's less hatratno for the employer, not efficacy is reduced, and the interaction with kollgami enhanced by new information technologies.

This is the future, no doubt.

I totally agree.

However if you are disciplined enough to SCHEDULE times to walk away from the computer...and...(gasp!) go outside, you should be fine.

It can definitely be completely consuming if you let it.

My goal is to ensure that I shut the door to my office while working and only coming out when done.

A home office has to be an office where I can close the door and focus. Knock off at 6pm, fine, but with the lady of the house about, I go nuts. Close the ###### door. Now I'm on my boat on my own, I don't need to close the door, but I miss her :-(

Close the door, the only way, with regular working hours. back with her next week. Close the ###### door, I'm working!