Setting Goals for a Home Based Business
Working from the comfort of your home is a blessing because there are no more bosses to deal with, difficult co-workers to confront, or rush hour traffic to navigate through. As a person who works from home you must realize that you are the boss; the captain of the ship who must steer your business in the direction that you want it to go in. Setting goals for yourself is important when you work at a place of employment, and it is even more crucial to set goals for yourself when working from home because goals will help you plan for and track the progress of your business.
It can be very easy to allow yourself to slack off when you work from home, but you should not allow that to happen. You probably decided to start working from home because you had specific goals. Maybe your goal was to be able to set your own hours. Perhaps one of your goals was to be able to earn unlimited revenue and you realized that your earning potential would be capped if you work outside of your home for an employer. Whatever your reasons are for working from home, you need to be productive and not allow yourself to get distracted from your initial reasons for choosing to work from home. Create an agenda for yourself and follow it. Every productive business has an agenda of tasks that must be accomplished within a certain time frame. You should set an agenda for your business too. If you want to have your company website revamped by the end of the current month, you should make working on your website a priority. Using a planner to keep track of your daily appointments will help you to list your goals each day and review what you have already accomplished.
Without goals you have no idea if you are accomplishing what it is that you want and need to accomplish. Goals provide the clues that you need in order to enforce a plan that will work. Goals indicate where your efforts should be directed. As wonderful as working from home can be, there are many distractions in your home that could prevent you from being as productive as you need to be. It can be very tempting to lounge on the sofa and watch television all day, but watching television all day long will not help you complete your work. Give yourself a rest and relaxation goal for each day. If you know that you enjoy spending at least two to three hours per day focused on things that interest you and that are non-work related give yourself that time to relax, but schedule that time around your work day. Make sure that you accomplish your work tasks by the end of each day. If you did not get your tasks accomplished by the end of the day, subtract some rest and relaxation time on the next work day and work harder to accomplish your tasks.
Working from home is a wonderful way to maintain a close relationship with your loved ones; they won’t need to wait until you get home from work to see you because you are already at home. You may need to gently remind your family and friends that even though you are working from home it is important for you to focus on your work and not get distracted with their demands. Make it clear to your loved ones when you can and cannot accept telephone calls and drop-by visits. Once you accomplish your goals for each day, check them off in your agenda and make a new list of goals for the next day and for the week. Creating a vision board is a fun project that can help you to visualize what you want for your life and your business and how you plan to accomplish those goals. Having a vision for your business is very important, but you must identify and track goals for your business in order to turn your dreams for your business into realities.
