Work At Home Help, Tips, and Articles

When you work at home it’s easy to find yourself frustrated, on over load, and feeling that you are not getting everything done that you need to accomplish in a day. Many times it’s easy to let the trivial get in the way of the important. Between family, home, and work there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day! We all wish we had 48 hours in a 24 hour day.

Here are some tips and strategies to help you get balance in your life.

1) Take a look at your life and clearly define your top priorities for family and your home career. Think in terms of each day, then on a weekly basis, monthly and long term basis. Put this in writing. It will help you to get a clear picture of where you need to spend your time. You may be surprised with a new perspective after writing these things down.

2) Use the 80/20 rule to your advantage. By now, you've probably heard something about this principle which states "80% of your success comes from 20% of your efforts." With that in mind you need to evaluate the 20% of your efforts that is the most productive. Then eliminate the time wasting activities and implement the productive activities on a daily basis. By doing this you will automatically find more time in your days for the activities that are important!

3) One of the biggest downfalls for most of us is the feeling that we have to do everything so it’s “done right.” Ask or get help. Think about hiring someone to clean for you, a high school student that can do some of your marketing, or an older person that could do small or minor computer work. Time is money. Spend your time where you get the biggest and best return.

4) Automate as much as possible. Use technology to your advantage it will save you time. This might mean getting a cell phone, getting email access on your cell phone, (if you are in the car a lot) it might mean learning how to use auto-responders or other available technology. Whatever it is for you, automation is a great way to get back more hours in a day. A word of caution, it will take time to learn new systems and set them into motion. Consider it an investment. Invest a little time now to save time later.

5) Organize and Simplify your home, work space, and life. As you get busier it becomes crucial to organize and simplify all areas of your life. Example: I doing my cooking on the weekends and freeze meals so that during the week we eat great food without all the muss and fuss during the week. When I fix a meat loaf I fix two and freeze one. It takes the same time to mix two as it would one but saves me time in the end when I can freeze one for later. When you work at home and don’t have someone come in to clean you many times feel you have to take an entire day to clean. Instead, try taking 30 minutes each day and clean a room each day. When the weekend comes around you won’t need to spend all day Saturday cleaning. You’ll be able to spend the day with your family! Learn to toss what you don’t really need and clean up the work spaces. Strive to be paperless in your business. In today’s world you can do it all on the computer.

6) Leverage your time by finding multiple uses for materials you have created. Don’t keep reinventing the wheel.

8) Realize that there are times you have to get out of balance to get things done. As long as it’s a short term sacrifice for the long term game you can live with it. If you see that you will have to work longer hours to achieve your financial and career goals make sure you talk with your family and get their full support. If they don’t understand why you are working hard and long hours you may find resistance. If you have their buy in you will find it much easier to get through the hard work.

9) You have to have a vision of the goal and what it means to achieve your goals. Stay connected mentally and emotionally to the “BIG PICTURE.” Use your work area to post your written goals, hang inspirational pictures and motivational messages. Keep the adrenaline flowing. You’ll find that if you stay focused on your goals you will use time more wisely and stop wasting time making excuses and doing the busy work.

10) Try to organize your day so that you complete similar types of work at the same time. Don’t jump from project to project until each is completed. Example: If you need to run an errand, create a list of everything you need to do while out of the house and get it done with one run.

11) Ask yourself at the end of each day what you “REALLY” accomplished. Then ask yourself what activities were the most productive. Implement those activities into your “20%” most productive activities that you do each day.

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