Working from home, whether as an employee or as the master of your domain, is no longer the exception to the rule when it comes to where you work and what you do all day.
Many people decide to leave full-time employee positions to “go out on their own.” Others remain employees but are allowed to telecommute some or all days of the week.
Many see the “freelance life” or the “work-from-home life” as a perfect, idyllic existence. Freelancers and telecommuters have a seemingly perfect life of hanging out around the house in their pajamas and doing much of nothing at all, right? (Similar to what many view, so wrongly, as the relaxed, pajama-and-soap-opera-days of stay-at-home-moms.)
Wrong!
The truth is, working out of your home is a lot harder than it sounds. You have to keep yourself motivated and productive at all times — not an easy feat in today’s distraction-filled world. Discipline and scheduling will make or break you.
On a personal note, I ran my business, Get It In Writing, from a super-cool home office for about five years before moving to outside office space about 15 minutes from my home. My problem was not distraction or ineffectiveness, but actually the opposite: I was working too much, too long and too hard. I needed a separation between church and state (or between home and office). I needed my home to be a haven away from the busy-ness of the world, not be a part of it.
See my next post for my top tips on getting out of that cave you call your home office cave.
