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Thursday 21 November 2013

Setting Goals When You Work From Home

You need to set yourself some goals when working from home, because otherwise the likelihood is that you won't get anything done. You need to consider your long-term objectives, so that you know what you want to get out of your career, and then formulate a plan to enable you to achieve them. You will also have to create shorter-term goals so that you can stay focused on completing essential tasks, rather than procrastinating and falling behind. Failing to set yourself goals could make working from home increasingly difficult if you are constantly missing deadlines and letting other people down.

The goals you set yourself will depend on what you do from home as well as your family circumstances. If you want to make a fortune and have no family to hold you back, you may decide to spend every waking moment working, whereas if you are working from home in order to raise children at the same time you may be less work-orientated. Working from home gives you the opportunity to decide your own fate. You can more-or-less choose the hours you work and which clients you wish to have on board. It is up to you whether to expand your business or simply focus on keeping the customers you already have happy.

This flexibility can be viewed in a positive way, as it is rather liberating being able to do your own thing. However, some people struggle to motivate themselves when working from home and cannot concentrate on the work that needs completing. You obviously have quite a few distractions at home that you would not have if you worked elsewhere and so you have to be able to prevent yourself from procrastinating. By setting yourself certain goals that you need to achieve during the day, week, or month you will be better placed to get something done.

In the medium term you may decide to focus on building up your client base and establishing a good reputation for yourself or you may prefer to focus on the financial side of working from home, though the reality is that if you don't have any clients or nobody rates your work you may struggle to earn money, anyway. Clearly, your short-term goals will feed into your longer-term goals. If you are able to stay on top of your work and meet your deadlines on time and to a standard your clients are happy with, you will be in a good position to achieve success in the long run.

1 comment:

  1. Very accurate tips! Setting your own goals is very important if you work from home, and keeps you on track despite the distractions that you might have at home. Alternatively, you can try working from coffe shops (as we suggest in the article http://blog.quiddoo.com/one-two-sugars-working-coffee-shops-can-boost-creativity/)
    Everyone is different, so one has to experiment a little bit before finding the best solution. But as you said, working from home offers a great flexibility and it is definitely worth the effort.

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