3 Bad Habits to Eliminate When You Work From Home

It sounds like a dream lifestyle. No endless commute. No nagging supervisor. And every day is casual Friday. But ask any work-at-home entrepreneur and they’ll tell you that it’s also super easy to pick up a lot of bad habits. Unless you take steps to avoid them, these pitfalls can leave you disenchanted with your career choice.

1. Taking on too much – When you first begin to work from home it might be easy to say yes to every gig that comes your way. You want and need the money and are willing to work extra hours even for the jobs you don’t really want. This could be a hard habit to break, but until you get it under control, you’ll be stressed and burned out. Instead, focus on what type of client you really want and what type of work comes with each client. 

Determine the services you really want to offer and make it clear that you won’t step outside those boundaries. You might already have enough on your plate taking care of the youngsters while working. You don’t need to cause yourself undue frustration.

2. Bad Sleep Patterns – You might try to say that it makes sense to work at all hours of the night while everyone else is sleeping. You can get a ton of work done that way with no distractions. However, you are preventing yourself from getting a good night’s sleep and this will eventually catch up with you. I’ve done this myself and it WILL catch up to you.

Developing and maintaining a decent sleep schedule makes a world of difference when it comes to productivity and motivation during the day. If you feel the need to get things done after everyone else is sleeping, be sure you monitor how long you work. Don’t fall into the habit of staying up until the wee hours just to feel productive.

3. Procrastination – When you work from home it’s easy to fall into the habit of putting certain things off until later. Discipline and self-motivation are two important qualities that anyone who works from home must have. If you don’t, you may talk yourself into starting tomorrow on almost everything, including work that will bring in some good income for you and your family. It’s easy to say “I’ll do it later,” but it’s detrimental to your business and your overall success.

It’s important to develop good habits right from the start. Having control over your income is something we all want, but also a huge responsibility and it takes a lot of dedication to make the business work. Developing bad habits will not only hamper your success, but it will also create unnecessary frustration. And who needs more frustration?

If there’s one thing that can make or break a business it’s the sheer will and determination of the person running it. Avoiding bad habits from the start will give you that extra push you need to succeed.

When doing anything during your day, ask yourself, "Is what I'm doing right now an income-producing activity?"

Hope this helps!