The Joy of Working From Home:

by Jeff Berner

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Motivation and Self Discipline

Working in the privacy of your home office can put you in dangerous proximity to the refrigerator, the television, and the bed. Many home businesses have suffered serious setbacks from a six-pack of beer and televised baseball.

Almost every human being has a budding bad habit of some kind, and if you are spending too much time alone with an eating disorder or are dependent on tobacco or some other substance, working alone can make the habit blossom. While your workday should be spiced up with occasional breaks, indulging bad habits can sink you before you start. Don't let little weaknesses steal the freedom you have gained. If there ever was a time to emphasize self-discipline, it is the first day you go to work at home.

Some years ago a magazine cartoon showed a writer at his typewriter with a winged muse perched on his right shoulder saying, "Well done! Keep it up!" At the same time, a little devil was on his left shoulder saying, "Hey! Whadayou say we go get a beer and a sandwich!Ó We all have little "friendsÓ sitting on our shoulders admonishing us about this and that. Which you listen to will determine how successful you will be at maintaining the discipline required to keep a healthy balance between enterprise and leisure.

You may find that one of the biggest joys of working from home is the freedom to work all day in a bathrobe -- until the day an important prospect or account drops in unexpectedly. Your embarrassment will be compounded if your home is a mess as well.

A home-based accountant I know deliberately gets ready for work each morning by "dressing for success.Ó When suited for action, he sees himself as ready for anything. He also keeps his home looking like a showplace by day, though it may become more comfortably rumpled toward evening. I want my own home to look good for myself most of the time because I spend a large part of my life there. I have a mirror by my desk so when I look up from my writing I can see that I'm "on deck,Ó present and accounted for. This visual, positive feedback reminds me daily that a big part of success is showing up.

"You must be present to win" is especially true when you are in business for yourself.

Procrastination and simple laziness come all too easy in the privacy of a home office. If you find yourself procrastinating, do the most unpleasant thing at the beginning of the day so you don't spend the rest of the day building resistance. Do one thing at a time rather than thinking about all the things you have to do.

Every day, create a to-do list to manage your activities. Prioritize it, putting the most important things first and the stuff you can do any time at the end. If you make your list the night before, you will be far less prone to spending restless hours in the dark worrying about all the things you have to do tomorrow or rehearsing how you will do them. If you can't sleep, get up and take care of one of tomorrow's tasks. Then you can return to bed with a sense of accomplishment and use the time you saved to sleep in.

However, don't let making the list substitute for doing what's on the list. And don't make long, endlessly detailed lists that will overwhelm you and make you give up before you start. Set achievable goals for the day and you will accomplish more with less stress.

The simple act of checking off each item as you complete it will give you a great deal of satisfaction. What you don't accomplish will simply get moved to the next day's list. If you are interrupted or simply call it quits for the day, write yourself a next-action note so you know where you left off and you can pick up the beat when you return to work. Whatever happens, don't be too hard on yourself. As someone once put it, "Forget about perfection. Excellence will do!"

Maintaining your own style of structure and continuity is a source of power and success. For example, you may always find it easier to pick up where you left than to start fresh each day; if so, deliberately leave a job unfinished so you won't begin the next day staring at a blank page.

Some high achievers practice a kind of yoga to stay motivated. It centers on imagining the positive results they will reap at the end of their projectÑinstead of getting too focused on individual tasks. Suppose you have to create a business plan to obtain an investment from a partner or bank. The task may not be fun, but imagine the pleasure of having a decent bank account to draw on when you need to buy equipment, print a brochure, or travel to Europe.


Picture yourself sitting at a Paris bistro on Boulevard Saint-Michel, closing an important deal with a new client. Imagine that you are banking profits, taking vacations, and donating to charity. This imaging can power you through the gray zones. Marathon runners use positive imagery to picture themselves breaking the ribbon at the finish line. If it can work for them for twenty grueling miles, it can certainly help you through a few tedious tasks.

On the flip side, you can motivate yourself by imagining the negative consequences of not accomplishing the task before you. If you don't get the funding, you may wind up with no business or professional life, or living in the basement of your maiden aunt's ranch, snowbound in the winter with a broken TV, no mail delivery, and no phone of your own. Or worse.

If you find yourself faltering or suffering a creative block, get active on something completely unrelated. Take a short walk or swim. The exercise will do you good, the fresh air will clear your mind, and getting out of the house will put distance between you and the refrigerator. If you find the fridge has a magnetic pull, take a tip from the weight-loss gurus: The moment you find yourself heading for the magic door, glance at your watch and decide to stay away for at least ten minutes. When you return, you may find that the urge has gone.

Whatever you do to keep the ball rolling, once you accomplish a major goal or groups of little goals, reward yourself. Celebrate! Watch the game, have a picnic in the park, take a walk, go swimming, or go out to lunch. Mix with your community.

Most people are surprised to learn that one of the biggest challenges to the freedom won by working at home is the compulsion to work endlessly. In The Overworked American, economist Juliet B. Schor reports that we give ourselves less vacation time than any country in the industrialized world. Italians get four to six weeks a year; the Finns, French, and Germans get five to six. By contrast, Americans get approximately four weeks. Our national habit is to work. You'll be happier and more productive in the long run if you take some time off. Plan ahead for a vacation by training someone to take over for a while.

Remember: you are working to live.

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© 1996, Jeff Berner. All rights reserved.