I wanted to start talking about a subject that a lot of people are interested in — work at home. I still remember when I first told my mom that I had a work at home job, she was like “How do you do that?” I guess when I first started, I didn’t know how either. It’s kind of something you grow into. It’s a challenge. You have to manage yourself and there were many days when I first started when I remember sleeping in and then getting up to watch Rolanda, some Jerry Springer and then take another nap. Eventually, if you stick with what you are trying to accomplish long enough (if you can afford too) you’ll start to come to a realization that is very important. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid and you start to do something. It might be small to begin with, which you know is my suggested strategy if you have been reading my stuff so far.
Work at home jobs are ideal because you don’t have to commute. You wake up and you are there. It’s super. But, since you are there all the time, you tend to work ALL the time too. When you work on your own, doing whatever, it kind of consumes you and you have to figure out what work looks like and what work looks like when it is done. Defining that is key. Now, even though I have a home based business, you to do tend to have ups and downs. There will be times when you are more productive than others. Times when you get so much done you can’t believe it. There will be other days when you make no progress. The thing is you can’t beat yourself up. You have to get started — even with the smallest step. One of the best investments I ever made was a Tony Robbins motivational system that taught me to just move forward in baby steps. Rightly or wrongly, you’ve got to decide on and end goal and think out what the steps to get their are and then take the very next step. You can only focus on what you can control and what are your next actions.
I’m kind of lucky though. Most people are looking for work at home jobs and mine just kind of materialize. I am in sales and the group of people I work with all work independently on their own from home or at job sites. In fact, I’m so busy at job sites, that I really don’t work at home anymore. That’s why I named my site Working On The Go. Because I have set myself up in such a way that I can now work from anywhere in the world and have everything that I need at hand.
The key is finding the right work at home opportunity. I think that most of the people trying to do this want to be work at home moms. Because they have kids in school and need to be available for them to set their own schedule, many moms are looking for a way to contribute without going to an office. I know I have an assistant that wanted to work for me precisely for that reason. I’ve set it up so she can work from home and do her job anytime of day or night. A work at home business is not as hard to find as most people think. I’ll be talking about some of those ways here on my site. Once you start working at home, or more importantly on your own, you’ll never want to do it the old way again.
My purpose for talking about this is that over the past year or so, I’ve lost a level of productivity that I need to gain back. I needed a place to focus on it and thought that their might be other people in sales or really any profession trying to figure out how to manage their work and their life in the most balanced manner.
I am writing this on a Friday. Tomorrow, I want to start this re-energizing process and set a list of things that I want to get accomplished on Saturday.
- Collect all of my loose papers
- Clean out my email
This will help me get things cleaned up so I can think clearer. If you are working at home, feel free to add to the process.
Other Articles Related To This One:
A lot of people who glance at sites like this one run away and hide becuase they perceive that the working from home sort of work that invoves AdSense, affialte marketing, etc. is ‘beyond them’ … too much like rocket science.
Well, it isn’t, but if you really want to stay only on more conventional ground, think of this. Any job that is done today with a telephone, the mail, and/or a keyboard can probably be done from home. How many people report every work day to an office simply to sit at a keyboard and talk on a phone?
One of the skills I had to learn again when I started working from home and working my own business where all those years of productive procastination in the work place is of no use when you actually get paid on doing some productive work in your own business
@lis
After years of practice I can now work at home from the couch, the floor or the kitchen table. This year I actually worked from the Bahamas and Monaco and while floating on the Mediterranean. You can work from anywhere once you get it figured out, even on vacation!
@Dave,
I once worked for an insurance company over a five year period. During that time, I saw several 100 people hired who didn’t even make it one year. Most of my appointments were held in peoples homes. One day, the company decided they were going to charge us rent for our office space. I decided why pay rent, I’m never there. I let them know that I was going to work from home from that point forward. They told me that they hadn’t seen anyone succeed once they left the office and worked independently. I told them that I hadn’t seen anyone succeed who stayed either…lol. Thanks for your comments Dave, I really appreciate them.
@ RW. Actually, I should have pointed out the obvious fact … many people fail at this business (and in other businesses … insurance sales is a great example) … becuase they flat don’t work. I don’t mean to step on anyone’s toes, but the number of folks who self-report blogging on company time, etc., makes this fact clear.
I’m not trying to tell anyone what is right or wrong, that’s completely up too them, but the bitter truth is, if you work for yourself you don’t get paid unless you work … and that’s just something a few people appear not to have thought through.