Thousands of Americans have made the switch from the office commute to working form the comfort of home. However, this option isn’t for everyone, as it requires a certain level of discipline to make yourself work with the distractions of your house all around you. Here are seven things to start doing this week to transition to working from home.
1. Decide What You Want to Do
The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of work you’ll be doing from home. Are you going to freelance? Take surveys? Sell items on Etsy? There are literally hundreds of options for generating a full-time income online, but you’ll want to narrow your choices down to just one or two before you begin.
Perhaps you’re well educated in a certain area and wish to tutor. You can make anywhere from $10-50/hour with online tutoring or creating informative courses on sites like Udemy. If you’re more interested in less in-depth tasks, you can always opt to be a survey-taker at sites like Survey Junkie. You’ll be granted points each time you complete a survey, which you can then exchange for money or gift cards. Not sure about taking surveys online? No problem! Read these Survey Junkie reviews and learn exactly why Survey Junkie is such a popular survey platform.
2. Create a Quiet Space to Work
You’ll want to create a dedicated workspace in your home to minimize distractions and keep your mind focused. Working from home can invoke many temptations; from your TV to your gaming console, to the pile of dishes that you can smell from the living room. It’s important to your success that you create a home office for yourself, preferably with a locking door.
This is especially important if you have children. You’ll want your space to be separated from the children’s, and while your partner or spouse is home, you can escape from the madness and get some work done in your office.
3. Create a Schedule
Once you have a dedicated workspace available to you, it’s time to create a schedule. You should treat working from home with as much responsibility as you would a regular 9-5 with a commute. Create a weekly schedule and stick to it. Working from home can be incredibly challenging, especially when you don’t feel like working. The prospect of being fired at your 9-5 is usually enough to motivate you to get out of bed, but who’s going to fire you from your in-home office?
Putting in the work gets the results. If you’re growing a business, you should be putting in any available time you possibly can. Skipping days does nothing for your business and can actually make your overall performance slip.
4. Create a Website
If you’re starting a business or even venturing into freelancing, you’ll want a point of contact for your new clients and customers. This can be in the form of a personal website, which you can design yourself with Wix, or hire a professional designer to create for you.
Just remember that customization is limited with DIY sites, and a web designer can create exactly the site you want from scratch. A good website can mean the difference between a prospective client contacting you or just closing the tab. You get what you pay for when it comes to web design, so make your site stellar to attract the best clients.
5. Update Your Resume
When’s the last time you even looked at your resume? If it’s over five years old, you’re probably still listing your high school fast-food job as a reference. Updating your resume and having a digital copy ready for prospective clients will ensure you can make a connection without having to look all over the place for proof of your past work experience.
Imagine talking with a client who asks, “Can I see a resume?” and you don’t have an updated one on hand. It’s embarrassing, unprofessional, and likely to cost you that very important connection. Update your resume and store it in the cloud or your computer’s hard drive for easy access.
6. Decide if You’re Working FT or PT
Will you be doing part-time work, or are you looking for a full-time income? This will determine what kind of work you do, as there are plenty of gigs that offer either option. Freelancing can pretty much go either way, as you’ll be able to choose your workload and the clients you work with, but if you’re doing something like online customer service, you’ll likely have a schedule that’s set by your employer.
7. Take the Leap
Making the transition from your 9-5 to working from home takes a lot of courage. There are a lot of unknowns with such a switch, and you’ll probably be questioning your decision the entire way. Don’t be afraid to take the leap. Yes, things are uncertain, but some of the best things in life come out of the chances we take. You might find that you actually love working from home and experience a sense of fulfillment you’ve never had before.
You might find that people misunderstand your decision or don’t support it, and that’s ok too. We can’t expect everyone to support our vision; for the vision belongs to us alone. Keep the vision, take the leap, and do something you love!
Normal
0
21
false
false
false
TR
X-NONE
X-NONE
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Normal Tablo”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Arial”,sans-serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN;}
