If you are going freelance and saying goodbye to your full time employed position in an effort to become the master of your own destiny, you need to consider how you are going to work. Sure, you could rent an office space in the center of the city, but this could be expensive. To keep your overheads low, why not consider working from home. This doesn’t mean sitting on the sofa in your pajamas with a laptop and your favorite box set on in the background (but no shame if it is). Instead, you can create a productive home office space from which to go freelance.
Working from home sounds like a luxury, and while it can be pleasant to work in comfortable surroundings, you also need to think about how you will prevent procrastination and be productive at the same time. Read on to discover how you can make working from home a success for your new business venture.
Work Day
If you think you can sustain working from midday to eight in the evening, you are very much mistaken. While it’s a sound idea to put the hours in when you want every day, you will inevitably fail when the kids (or dogs) are screaming for dinner at six PM and you realize you have to attend a parents evening. Instead, treat your work day in the same way as you would if you were heading into the office. Set an alarm, get up, shower, eat and head into your home office. You won’t have a commute so you might be able to get away with a later wake up time, but you should be in the office and ready to work by nine in the morning.
The morning is when you will be most productive. Ensure that you make a list of things that you need to complete each day and tick them off as you go along. Work with breaks and a lunch hour and structure your day like a full on proper day in the office. You can also use a freelance time tracker to make sure you’re keeping close track of your hours.
Get Out During The Day
Being at home can lead to a little bit of cabin fever. Being cooped up all day with no one to talk to can result in procrastination. Before long, you may be spending your days scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. While you might feel overwhelmed and daunted at the amount of tasks you need to complete, don’t remain chained to your desk in your home office. Have regular breaks and take short strolls to the park. Take your lunch in the back garden and ensure that you get outside to catch some rays. Natural daylight can help regulate your mood, recharge your batteries and help you to clarify your thoughts throughout the working day. If you are busy, you need to ensure that you take short breaks otherwise you risk burnout. You may think that you can maintain your levels of productivity but standards will inevitably slip.
You could also take your laptop out to your favorite coffee shop for a change of scenery, and to chat to other people. Working from home as a freelancer can be isolating, so ensure that you take the time to mingle with others.
Consider Making Your Life Easier
Working for yourself brings a whole host of new legalities and documentation to adhere to and fill in. Make life easier for yourself by using a self-employment tax calculator to work out your income and your obligations to the state. Utilize free online tools to help manage the admin tasks that you need to complete. You can also predict your pension contributions and financial obligations to your staff as and when you hire them.
Forget about traveling to different sites for meetings with potential suppliers, customers or clients. Traveling can be costly and can cause stress. It also takes out too much time from a working day. Streamline your meetings by conducting them online over Skype or via WebEx. This will enable you to remain in your home office and communicate with potential leads from all over the globe. Tech has now made the business world much smaller, and you can utilize this to your advantage. Utilize every potential opportunity to make your entrepreneurial life easier.
Making a foray into the freelancing world is exciting. But, it can also cause you stress and worry. Working from home should help ease this burden by helping you to launch your self employed career in comfortable surroundings. Follow this guide and you can make working from home a success.
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