Relaxed dress code. Your own playlist on rotation. Your favorite beverage at hand, and your preferred computer set up in front of you. Home offices are the best offices. So why aren’t you working from home yet?
I know. When you’re comfortably stuck in a groove (and nervous about the unknown!), it can be hard to get out: you want to take the plunge and start working from home, but you simply can’t find the motivation to get from there to here. How do you galvanize yourself to finally stand up and walk through those office doors, never to 9-to-5 again?
Throughout my blog, I focus on sharing with you what work-from-home jobs are out there, and how to best succeed when you’re working from home. Now I’m sharing my best tips on how to motivate yourself out of the office grind and into the home office flow.
Tip #1: Focus on the Schedule Control
Wouldn’t you like to have complete control over your schedule? The traditional office or retail life often forces us into early schedules (when we may not all be early birds), leading us to feel more stressed and run down. Not to mention that most of these schedules don’t give you any time to run necessary errands, especially if you have kids – who has time to get by the bank or the post office and the daycare or school and the grocery store? In fact, most working moms aren’t guaranteed time off to run and get their kids from school, costing them money in after-school care. Or working moms get to work a split shift, if they’re lucky, dropping their kids with a babysitter before rushing back to work. None of that is lucky.
When you’re looking for that motivation to finally break free from the office life, think about this: working from home means FULL SCHEDULE CONTROL. You can build your business around – or find remote employment that fits – your personal schedule. Up early to take the kids to school? Work from 9 AM until 2 PM, or whenever you need to pick that up. Are you a night owl? Take gigs that let you work late at night, and sleep the mornings away. The point is: when you’re working from home, your time is yours to divide as you will.
Tip #2: Get Excited about the “Anywhere Office”
Traditional offices never go anywhere: they just sit in one place. For many people, that place tends to be some form of commute away – maybe you have to drive 20 minutes or 45. Maybe you have to take public transport. Any commute, whether long or short, can be tedious (and waste gas or add up in transit fares), especially since you’re most often sitting in traffic with everyone else trying to get to work. Rush hour isn’t fun for anybody.
You know what’s much more pleasant? Walking from your kitchen into a home office that’s set up just the way you like it: from being a nest on your couch with a laptop to a full-on desk with a well-worn office chair. If you have special needs, you can rest assured that the office is also set up entirely according to your requirements. Know what’s even better than a home office? The office that you can take anywhere.
There are many work-from-home gigs that you can work on from nearly anywhere; so long as you have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, your office is suddenly anywhere you can grab a seat and/or access some secure WiFi. Having a mobile office also means doubling down on making your job work for you and enjoying full ownership of your schedule. Whether you’re waiting on a doctor’s appointment or for the kids to finish soccer practice, you could also be conducting business correspondence, managing social media, writing on your blog, or whatever you do. Just think of the possibilities of reclaiming your time.
Tip #3: Focus on Saving Money
Going to work costs us money. It costs money in gas or transit fare; it costs money in lunches bought and coffees grabbed on the go. It costs money in shoes worn out walking to bus stops or business casual clothes worn out from being worn so often. I could go on, but I won’t: I’m sure you’ve already gotten the picture, and it looks like a screenshot of your severely depleted bank account.
When you’re looking for motivation to launch your work-at-home workflow, just think of how much money you can save. First and foremost, you’ve suddenly cut your fuel or fare bills. You also get to avoid temptation for all those fast food purchases, from lunches out to a daily Starbucks fix. You can more thoughtfully spend your food budget and your time on tasty home lunches. Also, you can just go barefoot or wear slippers – comfort is priceless – and daydream about what you can do with the extra money you’re not spending on boring business wardrobes.
Tip #4: Focus on Your Own Goals
When you’re working a traditional job, your own personal goals almost never seem to matter. Whether you want to become a leader in your industry or do things your own way to increase productivity, traditional jobs can stifle that kind of initiative either through lack of advancement opportunities or established procedure that they refuse to change. Traditional jobs come bogged down with corporate baggage, tiresome bureaucracy, and office politics – all challenges that, taken together, don’t care if you’re a round peg they’re trying to jam into a square hole.
Make this lack of nurture on their part a reason to make the break and start working on yourself! Working from home means setting your own goals, exploring and choosing the best ways to pursue those goals, and celebrating your own successes while privately learning from your failures. You get to make the rules, break the rules, and nurture yourself. You don’t have to stress over the boss correcting you, you don’t have to do pointless busy work, and you can take greater satisfaction in your own work.
Tip #5: Make Yourself What You Want to Be
Don’t get stuck in an office rut because you think it’s the only way to become a successful programmer or bookkeeper or businessperson. When we’re run down from the office grind, wasting time on commutes and lunches, desperately doing as much nothing as possible at home because we have to unwind sometime – well, you’re not living your best life, and you’re certainly not becoming whatever you want most to be. You’re basically just treading water, trying not to drown. Our lives should be about so much more than simply not drowning.
As a remote worker or entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to really pursue what you’re passionate about. You can focus on building your skills and growing professionally while networking and finding clients. You have control over every aspect of your professional life, with space to grow into an in-demand developer or respected financial analyst or admired entrepreneur. It’s all up to you, and that’s an exciting and powerful thing.
Feeling a bit more motivated now? Good! Use that motivation to drive yourself into your work-at-home life. Explore more of my site to find tons of legitimate work-from-home opportunities, not to mention guides on how to start everything from your own blog to your own direct selling business. And let me know when you take the work-from-home plunge!
Steveark says
I do work from home and on the road now that I am early retired. It is way better than an office at a corporation but I would not say any job that has you dealing with other people, which is just about every job, is really completely flexible. If your client/customer needs you then you pretty much need to be available. I still have a few rare emergency calls and pretty frequent scheduled conference calls that other people set the dates and times for. It really is much better than my 9 to 5, especially since I only work about 16 hours a week now, but I don’t always get to pick which 16 hours. You made some great points I had never thought about even though I’m finishing up year two of this adventure.
Angie Nelson says
Thanks for sharing your experience, Steveark. The industry you go into will dictate your schedule to some extent. Those in customer service usually have a set schedule, many freelance service providers, on the other hand, work whenever and wherever they want as long as they meet their deadlines. Many freelancers only communicate by email. My team, for example, works all over the world. We only communicate by email. I work only during the day and they usually work at night after their kids are in bed.