Working from home allows you to be your own boss, set your own schedule, and be there for your family as well. Unfortunately, it also tends to cause you to work erratic hours which can affect just about everything in your life. Instead of just working whenever you can or non-stop, a better idea is to have scheduled hours that you work each day, just as if you worked outside the home. Take a look at some of these benefits:
It Improves Your Work-Life Balance
That work-life balance is really what everyone should strive for when working from home. In the beginning, it seems like a dream because your schedule is so flexible and you can work, be there for your family, and take care of personal responsibilities at the same time. However, before too long, you are spending too much time working and not enough time with your loved ones or on yourself, which is extremely common. This is why you need set hours, so that once you’re done working for the day, the computer is turned off and you focus on other areas of your life.
You Can Get All Your Work Done
Another issue with not having a schedule is that you might not get all your work done on time. This is because you have this idea that you work whenever you want, and might have some days where you wasted a little too much time on other things, resulting in your actual work responsibilities not getting done on time. With a set schedule, you can prepare for this by having certain working hours during the day. You know that during these hours, minus breaks, you need to be working hard and trying to eliminate distractions. You can close your office door or let your family know you are not to bothered during these times. It really does improve upon your productivity.
It Can Help to Avoid Wasted Hours
There are certain activities that take too long and end up wasting a lot of work hours, which may cause you to work until midnight just to get everything done even though you woke up at 5:00 that morning. This is a very common problem among freelancers and business owners that don’t have a set schedule. If you are going to use social media during your work day, it should only be on your breaks, or before and after your work hours for the day. If you fail to do this, you might notice that 3 hours have gone by without even thinking twice about it.
Making a To-Do List is Much Easier
Using a to-do list is a great way to ensure everything gets done during the day, including work and personal responsibilities. It is much easier to work on a to-do list when you know what is expected during the day and how many work hours you are going to have. If you allow yourself 6 straight hours of working with one lunch break during the week, then you know about how much work you can get done each day. This allows you to create a reasonable to-do list of tasks you can get done during that time.
When setting your work hours, consider what other things you need to get done as well. You might want to work 10 hours a day, but is this really going to work every day of the week? You also don’t need to be restricted to the traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday schedule, since you work from home. Having a set schedule is more important than actually sticking to what schedule others keep.
