Scheduling Your Day When Working From Home
One of the many blessings of the internet is that coaching and training entrepreneurs can easily work with their clients without meeting physically or having an office space.
More people are working from home. If you’re new to working remotely, these scheduling tips can help you stay productive and maintain balance.
Start Every Workday As if you Are Going to the Office
Don’t let the comfort of being home prevent you from developing an office mindset every morning, evening, or night that you begin working. Even though you are at home, you should designate an office-like area of your home, own a quality computer, and have fast reliable internet service.
If you have a family or roommates, make sure they know that interruptions should be kept to a minimum while you are working. You can only keep to your schedule if you treat your home working hours as if you are in an office setting.
Decide How Often You Will Work
If you don’t control your schedule, your schedule will soon control you. As you build a system to manage the time you’re going to work, you need to make the most important decision. How often will you work? A flexible routine is both a blessing and a curse for many people.
Will you work seven days a week? Four days a week? Forty hours, no more and no less? How many hours a day you work will ultimately depend on how many opportunities and clients you have and how much money you want to make.
Eat Your Lunch
Just as if you were going to an office, you need to eat daily meals. You need energy to work. Also, because you may be working from home, it can be easy to develop unorthodox work habits, like not eating because you want to power through a project. Remember to eat regularly. It will break up the monotony of work, give you energy, and let you take a break.
Decide Your Work Hours
Whether you work from nine to five, five to midnight, midnight to seven AM, or beyond the typical eight hour day, you must set your work hours. It will give you a routine to follow.
Accomplish All Work Hour Tasks
Know what you must do during your work hours and do it. Accomplish your work. Get things done. Then do it again tomorrow. You should also make looking for new clients a regular part of your work schedule. How much money you make and how much work you have will depend upon your initiative to always look for new clients.
Overall, you need to figure out how much you should be working, how many clients you should have at any given time, and how it fits into your schedule. Distractions and the undeniable comforts of home can become distractions to keeping to your schedule. You can, and should if needed, make your home working space distraction-proof. You can use online social media website blocking apps while you work. Work in real time via cloud sharing so you are always up-to-date with your documents.
Make Time for Workouts
The truth is that you should always make time for a 30+ minute workout routine every day you work. If you make it part of your schedule it will be something to look forward to and will help you form your routine. As you work, you will be sitting down for prolonged periods of time. Too much sitting can compress veins in your legs, impact heart health and muscle tone. Moreover, it can make your body stiff to movement.
You can’t afford to get sick, ill, or suffer injury due to illness or physical injury. You can only work your optimal best when you are healthy. Plus, when you make workouts part of your schedule, you will break the monotony of work and have something to look forward to during your work schedule.
Don’t Sleep It Off
You need rest and you need time to sleep, but don’t overdo it. Regular sleep at the same time every day will help you craft, and keep, to your schedule. But beware–if you give in to procrastination, or start sleeping too comfortably for long periods, you will disrupt your work schedule.
Stick To The Schedule
You may need to adjust for your family or other responsibilities. Adapt your schedule as you see fit.
The point is, create your schedule according to your life and responsibilities. Then stick with it every day that you work. You may be working from home, but it is best to have a “going to the office” mindset every day to keep you dedicated to your schedule. This is the only way to keep you dedicated to working consistently.
Moving Your Coaching or Consulting Business Online
The barriers to entering the coaching and consulting markets are relatively low. Anybody can develop a website, take, edit and upload photos to any number of social media platforms, and share their expertise on social media.
You can customize your coaching career by moving it online. Yes, of course, you can still work with clients in-person if you like. You can do both. It’s up to you. The benefits of offering online coaching are extensive!
1. You will save time by eliminating your commute.
2. You save money because you won’t be splitting commissions with anyone.
3. You can make your own hours.
4. The world’s online population can now be your clients.
5. You can work at a coffee house, the beach, a co-work space, or at
the kitchen table.
6. You can offer whatever type of coaching, training, or consulting you want.
If you’ve been thinking about going online, or if you tried before and just lacked the needed skills, this is the time to get everything you need to become highly successful. The Online Coaching Certification is your step-by-step blueprint to build a highly profitable online coaching business.
Between NESTA and the Spencer Institute, we have well over 25 courses, certifications, and business systems to help you build a totally customized career and business. You have the choice to add and combine the programs in any way which serves you and your clients best.
Our team is here to help you thrive during this crisis and provide our members with constant support during this unprecedented time. As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve the coaching industry.
Stay healthy!
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