What you need to know about work from home schedules
The vision of freedom that is associated with having a work-from-home is one of its main attractions. There is no time clock, no timesheets, and no one to account for the way you spend your time. There is certainly an attractive prospect here, but as with so many attractive opportunities, there is a heavy downside as well. You will probably be wasting a lot of time on this endeavor.
Work from home example
It takes my partner a long time every day to complete these large spreadsheets to plan the day’s activities. The majority of his day is spent working on a variety of projects for different clients as a part of his day job as an engineer for a large engineering firm. It’s been a long time since my partner dislikes the activity, and I have always dismissed it as a waste of time — that is until I recently started a work from home and discovered there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all of my goals.
My productivity has increased and I have been able to reduce my stress immeasurably as I now have my own spreadsheet and my own agenda for the day. I urge you to rethink your statement that you do not need a schedule for your work-from-home business and then read on.
The thought of going through a spate of unproductive days, where it seemed that my “To Do” list was growing exponentially each time I saw it, made me realize I had to change something.
In all fairness, I was experiencing some tough times at the time. It was not a good time for me at all. I had trouble with my work from home and it was taking up much more time than normal. Nevertheless, I’m old enough to understand that there will never be a perfect moment in our lives — we just have to live the moment we have right now. The things I’m dealing with this year are merely problems I am facing. However, next year several new, fresh problems will be supplanted with these in the same way.
I discovered five reasons to embrace the work from home schedule after studying my time and talking with other people who worked at home:
- Time is too easily wasted on non-priority tasks when you’re busy
- In the midst of your current task, it can be so easy to be distracted and sidetracked
- If you are not working on your schedule, then your free time will usually overlap with unscheduled work time until there is no time for leisure at all.
- When your free time overlaps with your work time, you might end up falling behind with important projects or you may start feeling overwhelmed as a result.
- In order to accomplish more, focus your time and effort on the highest priority tasks.
In my experience, I am not the only one who juggles work from home and personal commitments at the same time. It has recently come to my attention that men and women have been moving toward embracing the concept of working online — and that I have found it more liberating and less restricted. After all, it is still your schedule, so you are still in control. It is your choice whether you want to schedule yourself off during a 3-hour lunch break, for an afternoon, or for a whole day, whenever you wish.
When setting up your schedule and priorities for each day and for the week, it can sometimes be difficult to set them on your own, so perhaps you can ask a friend or your significant other for assistance to help with your work-from-home schedule.
