Are you thinking about killing your boss? Maybe your boss isn’t the problem, but your colleagues are. Are you thinking about killing them? You might instead be higher up the chain with a team of dozy subordinates who never get the job done properly, who in-turn are making you look bad. Do you have one of them picked out for a throttling? Maybe it’s not the people that are the problem, but rather the job itself that needs burying.
Whatever fantasies are beginning to emerge in your mind, the fact that they are probably means you should think about working from home, but if you don’t have the right self-management tools and the right advice to knowledge with, you may end up killing yourself. For success in working from home, the only things you need to kill are your bad habits, and this guide will teach you how.
Habit 1: Falling for Pointless Programs
The first step in working from home invariably begins with you searching for work. A few quick Google searches will reveal troves of money making ideas and tips, such as ‘how to make money in your spare time’ or ‘boosting to your income from home’. Some of these tips may help your cash-flow by saving money and earning small amounts here and there, but most advice given is not viable to keep any regular Joe afloat.
Most ‘online survey’ paid schemes are more trouble than they are worth, and you should be very wary of any advertisements boasting the chance of easy money. Only sign up to reputable companies and more importantly those where you totally understand the fee structure and exactly how much you will be earning for your efforts.
Habit 2: Looking in the Wrong Places
The best place to start looking for home-based work is on official job sites and local online job boards. Narrow the search criteria to ‘home based’ or use the search bar accordingly, and you will quickly see that there are many full-time/part-time positions you can carry out from home. The good news is that many roles these days that companies used to employ on-site are now being employed remotely. By capitalizing in the world of connectivity, companies and start-ups can reduce their overheads by outsourcing, and this is increasing opportunities for qualified people who want to work from home.
Habit 3: Home Jobs as a Career Change
In the transition to working from home, you are not usually in the position to gain a good paying home job in a new career field. If you have years of experience in a particular field, sticking with it raises your financial prospects for working from home. People with an accounting, book-keeping, payroll or other financial background often have good work-from-home prospects as many businesses outsource this type of work. You are always free to try something completely new, but don’t expect great earnings at first. You can take the middle ground and break into a new field of work however if you have cross-transferable skills such as administration, editing and marketing.
Habit 4: Working for the Man
Many work-from-home jobs will still have you working explicitly for someone else, but if you are breaking out of full-time employment with enough skills and expertise, self-employment gives you more freedom and no one to grind your gears. When you combine working from home with self-employment you get plenty of working freedom without the need to answer to anyone, except your customers and clients. If you are thinking of working for yourself, the first thing you need to do is register yourself as self-employed.
Habit 5: Fear of Networking
No matter what type of work you take and no matter whether you are hired or self-employed, you are always increasing your prospects by joining professional networking sites. Many people do not use them, and many see them as pointless, but the fact is that when it comes to working from home, the more contacts you have the better.
Habit 6: Lack of Structure
Once you are in home-based employment or have started down the road of self-employment, the single biggest mistake is taking the liberty of your liberties. If you do not maintain a rigid daily structure to your work, then over-time you will lose hour after vital hour that could have been spent doing something useful. You don’t have to plan out each day to the minute, but you should at least set your working hours, lunches and breaks. Keeping a good structure will ensure that you get the work done, and you won’t feel guilty at the end of the day when it’s time to relax.
Habit 7: Getting Distracted
Distractions and procrastinations may have been a fact of life at college, but you should make sure you avoid these habits at all costs when working from home. There aren’t many ways to prevent yourself from getting distracted online, but if you are smart you can still reduce them right down. If you use the internet for correspondence and basic tasks only, you can block websites that you don’t want to visit, disable add-ons on your browser, and uninstall/disable Flash/Java and other applications that most media websites require to run.
Attached Images:
- License: Creative Commons image source
- License: Creative Commons image source
Looking for a work from home opporunity that you can start today? While there are several to consider, paid surveys are a great way to get your feet wet. You can join trusted websites by reading the in-depth reviews at Survey Spencer, like this one. There you’ll see which sites you can trust and which you want to avoid.