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Working from home can be great for budding entrepreneurs, who perhaps don’t have the cash to set up in a brand new office, but it isn’t without its pitfalls and a lot of new home workers find it really difficult to adjust to their new working environment.
With that in mind, here are some survival tips for those of you working, or thinking of working, from home:
Invest in Good Office Furniture
If you don’t want to be laid up with a bad back or put out of action by a repetitive strain injury, invest in good, ergonomically designed furniture and accessories. A goods chair and keyboard, in particular, will help take the strain off your body when you’re working long hours trying to build up a successful new business.
Exercise
When you’re working from home, sometimes the most exercise you get is moving from the bedroom to the office to the kitchen and back. This is not good for you, and it will make you mentally duller, not to mention the effects it could have on your waistline, so make an effort to exercise vigorously at least three times a week and maybe get a standing desk, so you can burn more calories while you work.
Go Out to Work
You might think that going out to work defeats the object of working from home, but it will help to stop you from feeling isolated. So, if finding a small workspace for rent is out of the question right now, consider heading to your local coffee shop or co-working space once a week to give you the human interaction you’re missing from working out of the home.
Schedule Your Time
It’s so easy to procrastinate when you’re at home, and you have the TV, the internet, the stereo system and the kitchen at your disposal, which is why you absolutely must set and stick to a schedule. Sure, you can make your schedule a lot slacker than you would working in the office, and if you need to pop out it’s not the end of the world, but if you have a rough idea of what you should be doing when, you’re more likely to get it done.
Stay Away from the Fridge!
So many home workers put on weight after leaving the 9-5 behind simply because they’re at home more often and they are perfectly free to go get a snack from the kitchen whenever they like. You have to fight this urge and stay away from the kitchen unless it’s a time when you’d usually be eating anyway. If you can’t do that, just don’t stock any junk food in the kitchen. Replace the cookies and chips with fruit, veg, and nuts, and you’ll thank yourself for it.
Leave the Weekends Free
Working from home, it’s easy for one day to blur into the next and for your work to take over your whole life. You shouldn’t let it. Everyone needs time off, time to think and have fun. So, don’t schedule any work for the weekends; if you do, you’ll have ruined one of the best advantages of working from home – more time for rest!
