Who's in Control

Are you in control of yourself; your destiny; your business? There are many warning signs that you might not be, but many times they go unheeded. To be in control of anything, you must first be in control of yourself.

If you are working from your home, it is easy to "lose control" and slip into bad habits. You must exercise the same discipline that would exist in an office, where you had to arrive at a certain time in the morning, and work a full day.

While you can basically start your day, and end it when you wish if you work from home, you must maintain some semblance of discipline. Simply being there for a certain number of hours is not the answer, if those hours are not productive. But the beauty of working from home is that you do not have to have a regular schedule.

If your business is people oriented, you have to be available when your prospective clients are available to you. If it is product oriented, it really makes little difference when you work. Some people are morning people and achieve their best productivity then - so do it then. Others are "night owls" and that is their best time.

If you aren't in a situation where you have to be available during certain hours, pick whatever works best for you. A better way is to establish goals to meet. If you meet your goals each day, it doesn't matter when you accomplish them. Personally, I prefer to meet all of my daily goals in the morning when I'm fresh, and then, do what I wish for the rest of the day.

You should establish your goals for each day. The best thing is to write them down, and print them out so you can review them. Always leave a bit of extra time for the unexpected. For example, you should first check your email in the morning to resolve any problems that might have "cropped up" over the night. Then, meet your goals established for that day.

Does this mean that you must meet your goals every single day? No - rather it is a guide. If there is a cook-out planned with company coming over, should you ignore your guests just to meet your goals? Of course not! But those goals have to be met under any circumstances. While you can delay them for a day, the next day you will find yourself with a double load. I prefer to try to meet goals that I know I won't meet on a certain day in advance. That way, I can relax in the social session without having that "Sword of Damocles" hanging over my head.

Let's take a real life example. Suppose you are in network marketing, and of course one of your goals should be to enroll new recruits. This can be done a number of ways, and making calls to new prospects will be one of your daily chores. Set a goal of how many calls you will make on any given day. Once you meet that goal, you can either do other things to promote your business, or simply relax. If you "goof off" however and don't meet that goal for whatever reason, you are only hurting yourself if you don't make it up.

Personally I prefer working seven days a week. Granted, I don't work a full work day, but by spreading the work out like this, it gives me a lot of free time everyday. Others might prefer having definite days off, but you have to adjust your goals accordingly. In other words, if you are going to work at home, and have all of its benefits, you have to be in control.

If you are "out of control" your home business will not prosper, and you just might find you have to return to that regular job, from which you so desperately tried to escape.