Working From Home Is Hard Work

The old adage "the grass is always greener on the other side" is true as ever when it comes to working from home versus working in an office.  Working from home seems so appealing when you think about dropping your commute, being able to set your own schedule and work in comfort and quiet.  However, after a few months of working at home, you can all but guarantee you'll miss the structured schedule, the sense of urgency to keep working throughout the day and the camaraderie you feel with your co-workers. 

This is not to say that working from home is a bad idea, you just need to approach it with the right expectations and with a good plan of attack.  Here's a few tips if you're thinking about ditching the office and setting up shop at home:

Setting Yourself Up For Success
In the same way that most people don't just walk into their office and start working in the kitchen or the lobby, when you're working from home, you want to make sure that you have a dedicated space to do your work.  Setup a proper, ergonomic workstation in a room of the house that can be your office.  Do all of your work there, don't move from room to room, and try not to let other activities go on in your office room.  This will allow you to mentally segment work and play; family and business.  It will let you get your work done more quickly, and if you're planning on taking that healthy tax deduction for your home office, remember that it doesn't count unless you only use that room as an office.

Setting Boundaries.
In the same way that you need to have your office be your office and nothing else, if you have kids or other family or friends living in the home with you, you should take the time to explain to them your expectations for your work day and what it means to work from home.  When i first began working from home, nearly every friend would say to me "oh, that must be so easy" and this will be the consensus of your family as well, so it's important to help them understand that all that has really changed is the physical location in which you do your work.  Family, friends and kids especially need to know that they can't burst into the room and break your concentration whenever they have a question or need something.  One way to help reenforce this idea is to encourage family and friends to call you on the phone, even if they're in the same house, when they need something that's a non-emergency.  This may seem a little weird at first, but this will allow you to respond to them when you can and call them back when you can't be disturbed.  Even if you answer the phone every time, this will help to keep your concentration from being broken the way it can be when leave your desk.

Setting Goals
Finally, setting goals is one of the most powerful ways to stay on top of your day.  As a writer, the most difficult part of working from home for me is distractions, but if i can set macro goals for the day and then micro goals hourly, it helps me to stay on top of the distractions and get my work done.  You'll find that what would take 8 hours in an office can often be done in as little as half the time when you're at home and staying on task, so try to set good daily goals.  In my case, it might be "write 10 pages today"  so if i know i only want to work 5 hours today, that means i need to pound out a page every half hour.  This is a very basic example and you will rarely have a schedule that simple, but when you're all alone in your home office, letting your mind wander and getting off-task is the most dangerous threat to your productivity.