I’m No Expert…

Ten years ago I left my job in advertising to begin a freelance career from home. I never looked back. I am often asked how I do it. People who work in offices assume that it must take a lot of discipline, expecting there to be too many distractions at home. I treat it just as I did when I went into an office, except my commute and boss are a lot better. Here are a few things I did that may help you:

1. Set up a separate area for your home office. Don’t work just anywhere and everywhere around your home.
2. If you don’t have separate room for your home office, try putting up a partition/screen between your home office and the rest of your home. (I took mine down, but other people I know who work from home like it)
3. Set up your home office with all the office equipment you will need. Don’t scrimp. Make it a real office!
4. Get a separate business phone; don’t use your personal home phone.
5. Don’t have call waiting on your business phone; use a voice mail service to take messages while you are on the phone.
6. Forward calls from your business phone to your cell phone when you are out. I prefer not to give my cell phone number to my clients.
7. Establish business hours for yourself and keep to them. (But remember it’s YOUR business so you can work when YOU want).   

   I heard a story of someone who would leave his home in the morning, take a walk around the block, and go back to his home office to start the day. I don’t know if this is true but you get the point.

8. Don’t answer your business phone after your business day ends!
9. Shut off your equipment at the end of your business day. This will help stop you from constantly going back to do just one more thing.
10. Get a pet, they make great coworkers.
11. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you take on more business than you can handle, the work will suffer and word will get around. Reputation is everything!
12. Don’t be afraid to turn down work when you are overloaded. It’s better to have a reputation of doing great work and often booked up; rather than being always available but your work is so so.
13. Call or e-mail immediately when your bill is past due! If you delivered your work on time, then you should get paid on time.
14. Marry someone with good health insurance!
    A few more tips:
15. Keep in touch with other free-lancers in your field for
    reassurance, referral, relief.. you might want to know if the work flow has to do with you or the industry.  And, it’s good to talk business from time to time.
16. Get disability insurance as well as health insurance.
17. Take vacations …set them up in advance and stick to the dates.
18. Be as willing to break your own rules as you would break the rules of any office.
19. “thank your lucky stars each day that you’re working from home. Who could ever turn their back on that 60 second commute!” (courtesy of www.enterprisenation.com) 

 Do you have tips to add? Let’s hear from you!

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