Are you in the zone?
Whilst doing working today I was listening back through some old podcasts and came across a brilliant one about working from home which I had forgotten about. Actually it’s not that old – only from June this year. It’s one of Mind Your Own Business’s and is called Staying in the Zone. It’s a great listen so if you work from home or are thinking about working from home I would highly recommend it. I particularly enjoyed the different ways of making sure you get work done as practised by Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope – most entertaining.
The podcast contains some really useful advice about making sure you give yourself space to get work done – both physically by having a defined work area and in terms of time by giving yourself set working hours (also one of my tips in 10 tips for staying motivated when working from home).
My first article
I’ve had a stab at my first article for the site: The pros and cons of running a business from home
If anyone has any comments please leave them here. Am happy to add to the article of anyone has any suggestions.
Containing a home-based business
One of the challenges with running a business from home is to stop it from taking over the whole house. This is something that we definitely haven’t achieved yet but have a pretty good excuse in that we’ve been decorating the whole house so have been moving things from room to room. The decorating has been a long and arduous process (for my partner more than me as it has been him doing the hard work). We moved into our house two and a half years ago and it has needed a lot of work. The good news is that, aside from a few finishing touches, the decorating is now done and we’re finally able to get the house in order.
The getting in order took the form of moving me back into my office at the weekend (had been working in the dining room for a few months). It’s absolute bliss to be back in a proper office – it means that I can have everything I need to hand but also get away from it if I need to (instead of having the computer stare at me if I sit down to watch a DVD in the evening).
My new cupboard
A lot of the business stuff is still in boxes in the middle of the sitting room floor (yikes) but by the end of this weekend I will have sorted all that out (I will, I will). What is going to help with this is my brand new cupboard which was delivered today. Very exciting. That should keep some of the paraphernalia under control!
