Small Business Ideas

Working From Home – How to Increase Efficiency When You Work From Home
By Lisa McGrimmon

When you work from home, managing your time and working efficiently can be a challenge. It can take some self discipline, effective boundary setting and smart planning to get the most out of your time at your home office.

Here are 5 tips to help you to accomplish more when you work at home.

1. Schedule Home Office Hours and Stick to Your Schedule

Unfortunately, as soon as you start working from home, some people will assume that means you can take time away from work whenever you want. They don’t realize that any work you don’t complete during your scheduled work hours will have to be finished at another time, perhaps when you’d planned personal or family time. Or, they don’t realize that time you spend away from building your home based business means slower growth for your business.

Many home based business owners discover early on that they need to really guard their office hours. Set defined office hours, communicate them clearly to the people in your life, and do not stray from working those hours without a very good reason.

2. Avoid Answering Personal Calls During Your Home Business Hours

Personal phone calls can become an enormous drain on your time when you work from home. You may be having a very productive morning, and one phone call from someone who likes to talk can destroy the potential productivity of your day. If at all possible, let your personal calls go to your voice mail during office hours; you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time during hours that are supposed to be work hours.

3. Set Boundaries Regarding When you Will Not Work

It can be tempting to work all the time when you work from home. So, in addition to setting specific times when you do work, it’s also smart to set specific times when you do not work. Scheduling off hours will help ensure you preserve your personal and family time.

This strategy can also cause you to work more efficiently during your work hours. Many people stretch their work to fit the amount of time they have available. So, if you perceive that you have unlimited time to work on a project, you will likely spend more time than necessary working on it. If, instead, you realized that you had specific hours available to work on a project, you will most likely finish that project much more quickly and efficiently.

4. Finish Your Work Day by Planning for Your Next Work Day

Time can be lost simply from starting and stopping projects. If your last task at the end of the day involves writing a list of tasks that you will accomplish the following day, you’ll be able to start right into your work the next day. You’ll save time that would otherwise be wasted re-organizing and planning.

Writing down the following day’s tasks can also help you to reduce stress and leave your work behind for the rest of the day. If you’ve noted all of the things you need to accomplish the following day, you’ll feel more in control of your time and reduce any tendency you may have to worry about projects.

5. Don’t Assume You Must Do Every Task Yourself

Look at your list of tasks and projects and determine whether any would be better done by someone else. You don’t have to be a large company to outsource some of your work cost effectively. If you can leverage your time more effectively by outsourcing some tasks that are not central to the success of your business and do not require your direct attention, consider this option.

Working from home can be rewarding and carries a lot of benefits. Don’t assume, however, that you will be able to use your time well without a bit of advance planning. Establish some clear guidelines, routines and boundaries and you’ll be able to work from home with increased efficiency.

Lisa McGrimmon publishes the craft business site, Inspiri Art and Craft. Visit her site for more comprehensive tips on creating an effective home based craft business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_McGrimmon
http://EzineArticles.com/?Working-From-Home—How-to-Increase-Efficiency-When-You-Work-From-Home&id=2312090

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

No related posts.

Tags: Based Business Owners, Business Hours, Efficiency, Family Time, Good Reason, home based business, home business, Managing Your Time, Productive Morning, Productivity, Self Discipline, Working From Home

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 12:50 am and is filed under small business ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.