Archive for April, 2009
Work With Your Own Body Clock
One of the advantages of working at home is the freedom to work with your own body clock. In the corporate world, you have very little control over your day. If you are a morning person, or a person who is most energetic earlier in the day, you will find yourself sluggish and unproductive when difficult tasks or meetings are scheduled for late in the day. If you are a night person, you may struggle to be alert for tasks that are scheduled for the morning.
As a home business owner, you have the freedom to plan around your own biological fluctuations. If you are most energetic in the morning, you can plan your most difficult or challenging tasks for first thing in the morning. If you are a night owl, you have the freedom to sleep late and tackle challenging projects after dinner, or even in the middle of the night.
The key to working with your own body clock starts with recognizing when your highest energy level is. Some people are always energetic at a certain time of day and you can almost set the clock by the time when their energy wanes and their alertness fades. Other people are less predictable, and their energy level may depend on family demands or other stressors, or may even be affected by fluctuations in their diet.
Working with your own body clock also means that you have to take responsibility for planning your day. It’s very important for a home business owner to plan ahead. The most productive days are usually days that are planned the night before. Obviously, unplanned events sometimes come up and not everything can be predetermined. But if you at least sketch out your day and plan ahead to the best of your ability, you will likely find your productivity will skyrocket.
Dealing With Distraction
The biggest challenge most people who work from home face is distraction. You may picture working at home as a stress-free life, but you may find that being able to stay disciplined and focused in the middle of constant distraction is a lot more difficult than you anticipate.
In an office environment, workers are often placed inside cubicles, probably to reduce noise and other distractions. The decision to work from home is usually at least partly motivated by wanting to get away from living inside a cubicle. You are looking for freedom: flexible hours, even a flexible location. You may imagine sitting on a beach with your laptop.
In an at-home work environment, dealing with distraction is a daily challenge. For one thing, other people tend to view a person who works from home as not really working. They will be quick to call you on the phone, or show up on your doorstep, expecting you not to be busy. And if you’re not battling other people, you may find sometimes you are battling yourself. Self-discipline and motivation take constant practice.
The belief that you can create a life free of distractions is unrealistic. Life is full of ringing phones, crying babies, and needy spouses. And if you’re able to get away from all that, you will still have to contend with noise in your head. Your mind may start running away with planning dinner or next week’s schedule. You’re curious what emails you have received in the last hour or two. Ultimately you are distracting yourself even when others aren’t distracting you.
Self-discipline and focus won’t come easily, but they will get better with time and practice. As long as you are truly committed to your goals, you will be able to deal with the distractions both inside and outside yourself.
Investing In Your Business
As a home business owner, you have to invest in your business. Many people interested in starting a home business have very limited funds. One possibility to solve this problem is to borrow. But if you don’t have money to invest and either can’t get a loan or don’t wish to get a loan, what is the solution?
If you want to start a business with little or no money, you still have to make an investment. With little or no financial investment, you have to invest time. What this means is if you quit your day job, don’t expect to work less hours than you worked in the corporate world. In fact, you probably will have to invest long hours to get your business up and running.
For example, if you start an online business or blog, your initial task is to choose a niche that has a reasonably high demand and not a lot of supply. Once you’ve done that, you need to choose your monetization method. How will you make money? Whether you are planning to make money from affiliate marketing, Adsense revenue, or selling physical items, you will need to make an investment of either time or money to drive traffic to your site or blog.
For most new online business owners, time is all they have to give. If you still have a day job, you may not have a great deal of that either, but if you’re serious about your business, you have to find time to invest somewhere. Give up an hour of sleep or an hour of television or both. Time has to be spent on article marketing, free advertising, social bookmarking, and getting to know other marketers in forums.
The more focused time you invest in your business, the more chance it has of being a business that survives and prospers.
Alternatively, you can invest money. Traffic can be drawn to websites using pay per click advertising. Learn more about this in my next post.
Daily Planning
The importance of daily planning for a home business owner can’t be overemphasized. In the corporate world, days are very structured. You may need to complete certain projects by certain dates, attend meetings or training programs at certain times. You probably have coffee break at a certain time, lunch at a certain time, and you go home at a certain time.
But in planning your day for your home business, you are faced with a blank calendar. No one is going to make you do anything. No one is going to notice if you fritter your day away with web surfing or checking emails, or if you chat on the phone or watch soap operas or talk shows.
Of course, you will notice if time passes and you’re not making money. As a home business owner, you are responsible for planning your day and sticking to your plan. No one is going to make you do it but you.
The most important part of daily planning is to write down the tasks you expect to accomplish each day. It’s easy to tell yourself that today you will work on certain things, but if you don’t have a written plan, chances are you’ll succumb to distractions. They best way to write out a plan is in the evening. Clearly state what you will work on the next day. Plan your hardest tasks for the hours you are most alert, and the hours you are least likely to be interrupted by children and family.
You may have to dedicate a certain part of your day to marketing or business record keeping. Keep track of the hours you are actually working, not web surfing or chatting on the telephone with friends. Strive to better your best by knowing where you are now and what you’re actually doing with your time.
Some business owners prefer to use software to plan their day.
The Importance of Focus
For a lot of new business owners, their biggest mistake is lack of focus. Getting started isn’t the problem. Staying on one path is. They are constantly starting multiple projects, purchasing the newest ebooks or joining new membership sites. They work on one project for 20-30 minutes, only to abandon it to check emails or run off in a different direction.
I’ve known people that have purchased web hosting and spent two years not even coming up with a niche or a domain name. They’re constantly researching and planning, but never actually committing to anything. Their train of thought seems to be always interrupted by the newest kid on the block offering the product that will turn their lives around.
Having too many ideas and goals at the same time is kind of like being on the freeway chasing multiple cars. First there is a Mercedes that you think is going where you want to go, so you follow it a while. Then you spot a Porsche, so you change lanes to follow it instead. But wait! There’s a Lamborghini – and off you go chasing it instead.
All you’ve accomplished is a lot of lane changing, but not getting anywhere near where you want to be. Just think, if you’d stayed behind the Mercedes, you’d probably be at your goal by now.
The point is, choose one goal and stick to it. Make a list of the steps you need to take to achieve that one goal. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by anything else. Above all, don’t let yourself start a new project until you’ve really given the one you’re working on an honest effort.
The way to stay focused is to plan ahead. Know exactly what you’re going to do each day before you get started. Next time: Daily Planning.
The Fear of Pursuing Your Dream
What are you afraid of? Chances are fear is a factor in your life. Many people are afraid of failure. They don’t take risks at all because they’re sure they’ll fail. Or they take very cautious risks, like dipping their toe in a swimming pool, afraid to dive in. Other people are afraid of success and stand in their own way, fearing a complete change in their self-image.
Taking the leap from the corporate world to one where you are totally responsible for your own day is a pretty scary thing. Sure, it sounds great: work only when you want, report to only yourself, work in your pajamas, etc. But when faced with actually being your own boss, many people become choked with fear. What tasks should they do first? How do they prioritize which tasks are most important? How do they develop the discipline to accomplish anything at all? How can they be sure they’ll have enough money next week or next month?
The only way to get past these fears is recognize them for what they are. Pay attention to your feelings, and know that you have the power to change.
It’s important to have total faith in yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish. Many people who start their own business get negative feedback from those around them. People will imply that you’re not going to make it, that you should stay in the rat race with them. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of fear.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
The key to getting past your fears is deciding you’re not going to let them defeat you. Equally important is staying focused on exactly where you’re going. I’ll talk more about staying focused in my next post.