Planning Your Working Day At Home

By Rosie Gray

When you're working at home, it's easy to find the day just flies past in a blur. Perhaps time is taken with domestic distractions, or you find it hard to settle. Or maybe your working pace just slows down. Everything can take much longer than expected. (Particularly common when working for yourself, not accountable to a Manager.)
If you regularly reach the end of the day with major tasks outstanding, adding more routine and structure to your day will help. These tips will help develop a routine that works for you.

• Decide on your working hours

One of the challenges of working at home is that your working day can stretch at either end. It's hard to 'switch off' properly when you can easily check e-mail into the evening and weekends.
But over time, it's exhausting (and unfair on your family if they live with you).
'Working Smarter, not harder' is an overused expression. But it's better to work for a focused 7 hours a day than an exhausting 10 hours that delivers less. So decide your core working hours, and plan work within them.
If you're employed, these hours will probably reflect normal working time to fit in with your Colleagues. But if it's your own business, you have more flexibility. Choose to work when you're at your most energised, to fit in with your family or perhaps when it's best for communicating with your customers and suppliers. As long as the work gets done, it's up to you when.

• Divide Your Day Into Blocks Of Time

Many people are surprised how much they miss the routine of organisation life when working at home, and drift through the day without urgency. (I've heard many horror stories from home based workers of how easily an hour disappears on social media!)
Scheduling in specific tasks to be tackled, and when, helps retain clear focus. I recommend you do this at the end of the day before, to get the day off to a 'flying start'.
If you find it helpful, use a kitchen timer set to 'ping' every time you reach the end of the time allocated. This reminds you to refocus, switch activities and maybe have a break, before moving on to your next task. I find the self-imposed deadline of this schedule keeps me focused and keeps up the pace.
Using the timer keeps me moving as I become surprisingly competitive with myself as I want to 'beat the clock'. It's helped me become much more realistic and accurate when estimating how long a task needs.

• Plan In Your Breaks

Give your day routine and structure by allocating time for regular stretch, refreshment and lunch breaks. Put these into your daily time plan. This will help keep your levels of focus and interest high.
Use your breaks for handling some of the distractions that surround you at home if you like, such as putting on a load of washing, quick burst of washing up, a walk round the garden for some fresh air or a coffee break with your partner. Just keep the break to the time allocated!

• Set Groundrules For Availability

When working from home, family and friends can struggle to understand. If interruptions from friends ringing to chat or popping in for coffee becomes a problem, explain working from home isn't a soft option. The key word is 'working' after all. Maybe you can meet for lunch or catch up later in the day?
Even partners and children can be confused, imagining you're now available for the school run, adhoc babysitting and other domestic matters. The freedom to do all these things is the bonus of working from home but setting boundaries about when and how often might be needed.
If clients and colleagues are calling you at home, you may want to set boundaries with them too about availability. A separate phone number (or ring tone) could help so you can filter calls or switch to voicemail when it suits you.
Working from home can take getting used to, and these tips will help you to keep your focus and motivation so you enjoy the rewards.

© Copyright Mosaic Learning Ltd. 2009 - 2013 All rights reserved
About Rosie Gray;
Rosie Gray specialises in helping her Clients master Time & Pressure, to increase Personal Productivity. As a result, they feel less overwhelmed, back in control & achieve much more of what really matters. So if you never seem to reach the end of your 'to do' list, return every phone call & even sacrifice personal time to catch up, download your free copy of her e-book 'Seize Back Your Time!' http://www.seizebackyourtime.com/index.html

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Ten of the best ... ways to make money from your desk

Is money too tight to mention? Jasmine Birtles suggests some ways to earn extra readies in your lunchtime

Use your time online to make money. Photograph: Corbis

1. Get paid to surf the net

You surf the net all the time so why not make money every time you click on "search"? Yahoo powers searches which pay a small amount every time you run one – it is willing to do so because it wants to break down Google's domination. There is a search at Moneymagpiesearch.com. If you recommend your friends you will also make commission on their searches. The payments are small but we know people who have made around £30 in two months by searching regularly. You can choose whether you receive your money through PayPal or by bank transfer.

2. Take part in online surveys

Again, this is pocket money while you're on the internet, but it can be fun too. It is simply a case of answering questions about a particular product or company, or about your shopping habits. Be careful which surveys you use – some are fraudulent. Among the best of the genuine ones is panelbase.net, which will pay between 50p and £3 a survey, Valued Opinions, which pays between £1 and £5 a survey, and Ciao-surveys.co.uk, which pays up to £5.

3. Get paid for social networking

You can make money by keeping in touch with friends, and making more friends, on social networking site Yuwie. Set up a profile, write a blog, upload photos and videos and do what you usually do with any networking site. The difference with Yuwie is that it pays you to do all these things using advertising revenue. The amount you get paid depends on the number of times you and your friends view your pages. If you have lots of friends the views mount up and you can make some worthwhile cash.

4. Recycle your mobile

Have you got a useless old mobile in your desk drawer? Most of us have at least one hanging around the office or house, so make money from yours. Send it to Mopay and make between £2.50 and £200 depending on its make and condition. Even rubbishy old battered models can be worth a few quid if they can be sold on for spare parts.

5. Sell adverts on your blog

If you are a regular blogger and have built up a bit of a following, you could make money selling advertising around your posts. You can make cash quickly by putting Google Adsense on it. If you get enough traffic you make money every time people click on the ads. Blogs are also great for selling any products you have, promoting your services (it could be anything from sales training to web development or maternity care) and selling eBooks you have created yourself.

6. Sell your photos

If you have a nice collection of digital photos you could sell them over and over again through online agencies. Send them in to one or more agencies and any they like they will upload to the site. When people buy them you get a commission; you could end up getting paid for years to come. Picturenation say many of their photographers make hundreds of pounds a month, and some are simply good amateurs. Also try Fotolia and iStockphoto.

7. Rent out your stuff

Everyone knows about selling stuff on eBay, but how about renting it and making money over and over again? Sites like RentNotBuy.co.uk and RentRino will let you advertise anything from a baby bath to a ball gown. It is a new phenomenon, so it could be a while before anyone rents your power tools or your DVD player, but if you have a spare minute upload your details and later on you could make some regular cash.

8. Complain to gain

We don't complain enough in this country, which is one of the reasons why service can be so bad. However, those who complain constructively have worked out they can even make money through it. A well-crafted, reasonable letter including a request for financial compensation can make you money. Write to a company's CEO explaining the problem and set out the amount you feel you should receive in compensation. If it is refused write again, and even write a third time if necessary. Usually by the second or third letter they cave in and give you about half of what you were asking for.

9. Answer text questions

If you're a bit of a trivia king or queen you could make money by answering people's text questions. It is flexible work and you just have to be a bit knowledgeable and quick at searching the net (make extra by following point 1 above). On average, question answerers make about £10 an hour. The questions vary enormously: you could get anything from "Where's the nearest pizza place?" to "Who won the 1962 world cup?" and "Will I ever find love?". Visit ansanow or Textperts to see if you are quick enough to be part of their teams of knowledge hunters.

10. Get cashback

If you use your lunch hour to buy essentials, make sure you get paid to do it. Shop around first to find the best deals, then look on cashback sites to see if you could get money back by buying through them. Start with sites that give you instant cash just by signing up, such as Rpoints, which gives you £5, Cashback Shopper, which gives you £5, and ecashback, which gives you £2.50 immediately.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/12/make-money-on-the-internet