Establishing your own business from home involves many of the issues associated with the creative process. There have been many, many books written about the creative arts, whether it be about creative writing, (prose or poetry), musical composition, (classical or popular) writing essays or dissertations, even the writing of effective CV’s or sales letters. It can be pretty well guaranteed that in the first chapter of these books, probably on the very first page, a key piece of advice will be that it is essential to have a work place where you will not be interrupted. A critical issue with the creative process is ‘train of thought’; – to be regularly interrupted will break that train of thought and undermine the work being done.
This applies just as importantly to the situation when you work from home. Whether you have a home office or a particular work station (even if that is just the kitchen table) it must be somewhere to which you can retreat to work without distraction. It is your work after all and must be treated as such. If you have a family, ground rules need to be established.
Just as there are breaks and lunchtimes timetabled into the working day in offices and other places of work, it is important that you establish a similar routine at home. We all need times of rest in the working day. Our periods of work will be more effective if we get these times of mental and physical relaxation; – less effective if we don’t! It is true that Franz Schubert got so involved in his composition that he would work ceaselessly, day and night, without a break and without meals until he had finished what he was doing. But we are not all like him! It is also probably why he died in his mid-30’s.
The simple advice is, establish a work routine at home which is just as structured as a workday would be in an office, factory or school, even if you are only working at your business for a couple of hours a day. Define your working space and your working times and stick to them. Get your moments of relaxation and make sure that you can work without interruption. Apply this advice and you are far more likely to succeed in your home venture than if you fail to apply them. Enjoy your work!