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Part II: Am I Cut Out For The Work At Home Life?
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 Working from home is not for everyone. There are some basic personality traits that seem to do better working from home whether it's your own business or if your employer allows you to telecommute. Some of the qualities are:
- Discipline: You ditched your boss and have assumed your bosses role. No one is around to make sure you meet deadlines or follow up with clients. You have to make sure everything gets done. You must set the schedule and follow it. When the weather outside is gorgeous and you'd rather be sitting on the deck grabbing a few rays, you have to be disciplined enough make sure that everything that should have been done has been done before you go out and relax.
If you know that your most productive time is between 8:00 am and 12 noon, then, be productive. Once you've done what you needed to do, then reward yourself. It is very tempting to put off until later, what you should be completing now. Don't reward yourself before you've done something worthy of rewarding. That is a dangerous habit to get into may be the downfall of your home business.
Remember, your clients should not be the one prodding you to get your work done.
- Self Motivation: Self-motivation is a close cousin to discipline. Even when you don't feel like contacting your least
 favorite client, you have to. You have to motivate yourself to perform your least favorite job tasks. If you find that your list of clients is too lean to provide the income that you need to stay in business, don't bother to write a scathing memo to the sales staff. Pull out the mirror and give yourself a good talking to. You and you alone must bring in new clients. The bottom line falls on you. If you don't go out and get the business, it won't be gotten.
- Focus: Remain on target. Set your goals and keep to them. Don't get lost on a tangent. If you find that the weeds in your flowerbed are causing you to spend too much time thinking about them and pulling them, then you're not focused on what needs to be done (unless you have a home gardening business).
It is very easy to lose focus. Your friend sends an interesting e-mail which causes you to go to a few websites, which causes you to respond to your friend, which causes you to forward it to other friends, which causes them to respond to you, which causes you to write them back. A few hours later, you've chatted with all of your friends, but your deadline still looms and you're no closer to meeting the deadline than you were a few hours ago.
Keep focused. If you find that you tend to get lost in e-mail world, set a particular time of day in which you will answer and chat with your friends. Let's face it, it is your own business, you can choose what and when you want to do things. Just keep in mind that you're in this to make money too. Remain focused.
- Organization Skills: Organization will help you to work smarter. There is nothing worse than receiving a call from a client about an important matter, and you, being unprepared and disorganized are rifling through your office trying to find the file. The client, on the other side
 of the phone, is patiently waiting for an answer and hears your papers being thrown about. What kind of an impression are you giving?
Being organized helps you to be more efficient. Let's face it, we all would rather work smarter rather than harder. Taking a few minutes to file things away, and organize your workspace will allow you to be more productive.
- Independent: You must be able to work alone without outside direction. You'll have to prioritize your day and assignments and be able re-arrange priorities on the fly.
If you find that you can't seem to get anything done without someone telling you what to do and prioritizing your day for you, then you'll have a large problem working from home on your own.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes you will need advice. If you have a mentor or someone whose opinion you respect, seek advice when necessary. Just remember, that it is your venture and ultimately you are responsible.
- High Energy/Enthusiasm: When a near impossible deadline is approaching, you may have to burn the midnight oil. That means that you've got to have the energy and stamina to be able to handle an all nighter.
Hopefully, situations like that are few and far between, but they do occur. In addition to all nighters, you are responsible for bookkeeping, post
office runs, purchasing supplies, meeting with clients and vendors, creating your product and selling it. That's a lot of hats and it takes a bit of energy to wear them all (not to mention the fact that you may have a family to juggle in addition to your business). If you're not energetic and enthusiastic about your business, it might be tough to keeping up with all that must be done.
- Solitary: Working at home can be lonely at times. For some people this is just fine. Certain careers, such as writing or painting may benefit from the solitude. However, if you're one that must have an office full of people around you to feel comfortable, this might not be for you.
Along with your boss, you dumped your cubicle mate. When you feel like turning your chair around to find out the latest gossip, it's just not there. You can make calls, or send an e-mail or even join a forum. There are plenty of forums geared specifically for those who work at home and are feeling the pinch of loneliness.
Remember, your goal is to work from home, not to become a professional forum chatter. Stay focused.
So far, we've discussed why you might want to work from home and which personalities are better suited for working at home. We purposely left out the family dynamics.
Your decision to work from home will not be complete without taking into account how it will affect the family. The next part in this series will discuss how working from home may change, or enhance the family dynamics.
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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Felicia A. Williams is a freelance writer and webmaster of this website, Visit Hudson Valley.com and No Job for Mom.com. She is also the Insurance Feature Writer for Suite 101.com
This document last modified Monday, 16-Feb-2009 09:17:44 CST
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