| The Realities & Challenges of Working at Home |
by Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz
While many tout the wonders and independence of working from
home, whether you've got a regular job that allows you to
telecommute or you own your own home-based business, they
often don't talk about the challenges that face the home-
based worker.
Not that I'm going to trade the benefits in for a "real
job," mind you.
Some of the challenges that face any work-at-home person,
whether they have been working from home for years or are
just starting out, are tough. For me, personally, they rank
in this order: self-discipline, loneliness, family over-
time, distractions, organization, and respect.
Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is by far the hardest thing to master when
working from home, whether you're working at your business
or not. While it's easy to envision yourself succeeding
and "getting things done," it's much harder when the real
rote and tackle of work is in front of you. Even if you
absolutely love your chosen profession, there are at least
some aspects of it that are tedious to you. These are your
biggest stumbling blocks.
For me, mastering self-discipline was the roughest part of
working from home. Other challenges on this list are easy
compared to this one, since most of them are just the
"excuse" you need to avoid discipline and getting things
done.
Loneliness (aka "Cabin Fever")
For some, this is no big deal. These are people we'd
normally define as "home bodies." I'm not one of those.
I'm an extremely social person. Luckily, email and (some)
phone interactions during the day abate this problem to some
extent. I've also got other things I do to keep my normally
fidgety self from collapsing in self-pity.
I walk the dog, I see a couple of friends for coffee at
least once a week, I participate in political activities in
my area, and I spend time with my family doing things. In
short, I have plenty of things I do outside of my work (and
office!) to keep me healthy socially.
Family Over-Time
This one's tough and can sometimes coincide with the lone-
liness problem. When your family members are home all day,
as you are, it can easily lead to friction, a breaking down
of "structure," and a lot of other similar problems.
For instance, when my wife is home with a day off or a short
day at work, we can sometimes get on one-another's nerves or
distract one another from tasks. I have several ways to fix
this.
The most preferable for me would be to own a large mansion
with rooms defined as "suites" and organized into distance-
separated sections defined as "wings." Since I'm not a
multi-millionaire (yet), this isn't feasible. So I resort
to plan b: a notebook computer and the library. I load the
stuff I'll need onto my portable computer, go to the library
and spend a few hours working there instead of at home.
Distractions
The above problem is also closely related to this one.
There are a million things in your home environment to
distract you: especially if the task at hand is particularly
unsavory for one reason or another. Computer games, hunger,
the dog, the cat, kids, spouses, and various forms of
procrastination are all things that can easily be
distracting to you.
In my own experience, the dog and computer games are my
biggest nemesis in this department. The only way I've found
to combat these issues is self-discipline using "rewards"
for good behavior. I promise myself that if I finish the
task at hand, I'll play that game for an hour or wrestle
with the dog for a while as a reward.
Organization
By nature, I'm not a meticulously organized person.
However, I do have certain habits which seem to facilitate
easy organization: namely I have a calendar and keep email
archives. :
I recently purchased a $4 pocket calendar/weekly day minder.
On my wall right next to the desk is a marker board on which
I write "To Do" lists (coded with special symbols like "*"
and "-->" to tell me importance of the item). I also have
two marker-board calendars (one for the current month and
one for the coming month) on which I keep short notes.
These basic tools keep me on track for the most part.
Other parts of organization include your office/business
files, your computer's data and backups, invoices and
debits, etc., etc. Coming up with **simple** ways to
organize these items is key to keeping yourself from feeling
"swamped" with details. I emphasize the word "simple"
because if your organization is too complex, you'll start
"cheating" and it will eventually fall into chaos. KISS is
a favorite military term: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."
Respect
Lastly on my list comes respect. Many people assume that
since you "work from home," you must be fiddling around with
some get rich quick scheme and burdening your spouse,
significant other, parents, the government, or someone else
with yourself as you while away the hours in a dream world.
These are people who see you during your best hours and
don't see the 16+ hour days you're putting in slaving in
your office, the struggle to coherently write a web page,
email, etc., etc. while functioning on three hours' sleep,
or your long battles with the IRS when filling out "self
employment" tax forms.
To work from home without going insane or maybe to jail for
attacking some nay-sayer, you'll have to grow a thick skin.
or make a lot of money you can flaunt in front of them to
disprove their foolish notions.either one will work. I
personally use the first while working towards having the
second. :)
So working from home isn't all gravy. Oh well. Nothing in
life is. The true beauty of working from home comes from
the independence, freedom, and self-reliance you gain in
"going it on your own." It offers opportunity, excitement,
mental stimulation, and more. Take pride in your choice!
==========
Aaron is the proprietor of Aaronz WebWorkz, a full service
company catering to small businesses online. Aaron
publishes a weekly newsletter full of hints, tricks, and
other info for the online entrepreneur.
http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
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