Working from home

[D9ENTERTAINMENT]

Hi Everyone

Havent written anything on the forum for a bit so thought id start a thread .

Dont know how many of you work from home but the probabillity is that nearly everyone on this forum is working from home and more than likely we all have the same problem of being focused whether it be something on telly or something else going on in your house or even family getting in your way.

So what i thought i would ask is what does everybody do to stay focused on their work ? also does anybody have any tips on how to set up your home office. I know there has been plenty of threads about this but feel it would be better if we had a more reccent one .

Look forward to seeing some of the advice and tips

[Eagle]

I guess it'll depend on whether the person's income is gained through passionate work or drudgery just to pay the bills.

[MarcDerby]

I understand where your coming from, had the same problem myself in the past. If possible it is best to use a room in your house as a dedicated office/work space and no TV in there unless you need it for work. I know not everyone has a spare room, so even if you can section a bit of a room off for a workstation works well.

Another tip for people struggling to focus at home (this might sound stupid) is to dress for work, as you would if you worked in a office for someone else. Working at home in your underwear or "house clothes" takes you away from business, if your dressed smart and in business clothing then this will help get you into the focused mindset that your at work and in business.

[ekinnee]

That's actually a really good idea LionMoto I do a fair bit of working from home and have taken the drastic step of just doing away with a TV altogether. I'm such a fantastic procrastinator and so easily distracted that this was the only way I could really get anything done. It saves a good chunk of money as well and with things like iPlayer you can still catch the programs you really don't want to miss.

I also start my day with a bit of routine, forcing myself to get up at a decent hour and allowing myself a good half hour or so before getting down to work to do some email checking or reading up on news, etc.

In terms of other household distractions, like family, phonecalls etc. I get around this by either putting on headphones (listening to lyric-less music because the lyrics distract me ), turning off the cell phone and finding an empty room in the house where I can hide away for a while with the laptop. I've still not figured out how to keep from getting dristracted by Wikipedia though. I find that I can often start by looking up something like doodlebugs and keep getting distracted by link after link until I'm researching the wind patterns in australia for no reason whatsoever

[Meadsy]

Personally I have no troubles, I enjoy what I do and to be honest I work alot harder for myself than I ever did for someone else. I find it easy to focus when it's your responsibility.

No stop posting and start working

Cheers
Rich

[lordlancaster]

I know people that sit around in their pyjamas all day and still do a decent days work, whilst others need to have a 'proper' start to the day and get dressed in shirt and tie in order to get anything done.

I guess it all depends on what works for the person, the line of work you are in and whether you will be meeting clients (which may require a certain appearance) - but having worked from home myself in the past I'd say that it is important to have a seperate room or 'office' area devoted to work without too many distractions like TV.

For info, the following piece was in the Chartered Management Institute's 'Professional Management' magazine this month;

"More than 3.5m people work from home, according to research published by the TUC, which says there are cost and productivity benefits to be gained by organisations in adopting a more flexible approach to working in these times - helping to save on office rent, energy and transport costs".

Home working is one of the smarter working practices being promoted through the Work Wise UK campaign (www.workwiseuk.org)

[Kaizen Print]

On a related note. Do you use a virtual address for your business or your home address

[lordlancaster]

Up to you really. Depends how much business correspondence you are expecting and whether you really need to make your address public, or could get away with something like;

Shell LiveWIRE
www.shell-livewire.org
enquiries@shell-livewire.org
0191 423 6229

If you really don't want to publish your home address, you could explore the option of having a PO Box which the Royal Mail are currently offering from £62.85 for 12 months (http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/c...6&catId=400040)

[VLAHAKISA]

I don't have any particular problems with motivation or distractions, I actually quite enjoy coming to work 95% of the time.

The way to avoid tv as a distraction is to have a rule that under no circumstances is it ever put on during the day - there is just too much of a risk of getting lured into a lengthy programme if you put it on. When I want a break I simply go out and sit in the garden with a drink and perhaps read a few pages of a magazine before going back to work. Or sometimes to get an eye break I go and put some washing on and do some small chore like that.

I tend to avoid reading Heat, it's too addictive and before I know it I've read the whole magazine and a full hour has passed.

Making your working environment pleasant will also help you to want to stay put. I pretty much stay chained to my office all day. I do believe that yes a dedicated space is pretty important to establishing a good commitment to daily working.

I don't dress for work all the time, it doesn't make any difference to my motivation levels to be honest personally.

Amanda

[lordlancaster]

On the downside, working from home can be quite lonely if you never get to meet or interact with anyone (except your pet cat / dog / goldfish). You also need to check that your insurance policy covers you for having a home office. Also, try to have a proper system in place for backing up your data and protecting your PC / laptop against viruses...

BT have produced a useful little guide to working from home. Obviously a marketing ploy for them as you need to register your details to download, but you can opt-out of emails and it's worth a read.

http://www.insight.bt.com/guides/Hom...king_from_home

[missfituk]

Well Im writing this message from my bed, propped up in bed under the covers with my laptop on my knee, landline and mobile next to me, my diary and a lovely cup of tea and toast :-)

Have had quite a productive day, Ive spoken to the local papers about the playscheme, done all my emailing, typed up booking forms and consent forms for the playscheme which are ready to print, answered 4 telephone enquiries for the playscheme and taken address to send out booking forms, paid 3 invoices on my internet banking, approved 2 new dress designs for the Miss Fit Christmas collection sent to me by email and booked my train tickets for London on Thursday :-)

If Id been to work in an office today I would have had to get up at 7am to achieve this much, spend an hour getting dressed, drop my child off at a childcare facility, get to the office, turn on computer.... as it is, I didnt get up til 10am and Ive finished most of my jobs already and thats why I love working from home. My son is downstairs watching Nick Jr with his breakfast in his pyjamas and playing with his toys, he's happy to be at home too.

I do have a habit of procrastinating, especially come 12.30 when Loose Women comes on, but if its something important like disptaching a customers order that they've paid for, then I prioritise that and do it first. For me its about knowing what you absolutely must get done right away, and what can wait til later - for example I need to track my last parcel to China but it can wait til later, they're 8 hours ahead and the office will be shut now anyway, so might as well do it later :-)

[Kaizen Print]

I could have sworn I posted on here!

My goal would be to work remotely from the Bahamas

-Skype taking all calls to the company number via my lappie/iphone
- Processing all online orders
- Communicating with clients on proofs via email
- Couriers collecting print from source & directly delivering to customers.

Actually, what am I doing here?

[D9ENTERTAINMENT]

With my company its part of our job to keep up with whats going on on telly e.t.c. Gotta say there is one great thing about working from home and that is the fact your saving tons of money on travel and using your time more productivly instead of getting up at 7am to make an hour long commute into london you can wake up at 9am turn your computer on and effectively you are at work.

Although i do agree that it does sometimes get lonely working by yourself at home maybe everyone could set up shell livewire meetings in their local area, when i first started using the forum in 2006 there was tons of them. maybe everyone get together at midday or something for a luch break.

Talking about using home address over a professional one i tend to have on my business cards , my email, landline, mobile and the companies website address a i dont really think anybody sends snail mail anymore due to the fact we want to do everything quicker. Just out of interest have any of you guys got pictures of your home office , Cause would be interesting to see what and where eeryone works from.

Sorry about the long message guys....

[MarcDerby]

Heres my home office (attached) although I am in the middle of doing the loft into a better working space now

[D9ENTERTAINMENT]

Very nice looking office your one of the lucky few who has a room dedicated to it what about other people like me operating from their bedrooms?

Also on the subject of working from your bedroom does anybody think this is a good idea? as i saw a programme on 4 learning earlier this year where a boy was studying in his bedroom and it was affecting his sleep due tothe fact that he is working and relaxing in the same room. Does working in your bedroom affect any ones sleep or stop you from relaxing?