Whenever I meet someone new & we get to talking about our respective careers, I almost always hear the same thing, "That is so cool! You must work in your pajamas all day!". And while I admit I would probably like to do this from time to time, I never do.
For me, one of the most important things about having a work at home business is treating it like a business and giving myself structure. Now I can fully admit I have obsessive compulsive tendencies and this may not work for everybody (and I understand that this kind of goes against what is kind of fun about working from home) but that is OK. The reality is I wake up each morning with the mindset that I am going to my job. I just don't have to drive to get there. :)
Each morning starts out the same Monday-Friday, with waking up around 5am, getting a quick workout in, showering, eating breakfast, straightening up the house a little bit and then I settle down in my studio (with my coffee!) before 8am. From there I usually stay put until about 4pm, breaking only for lunch. For a long time I played around with the structure of my day, but I've found that if I treat my job just like any other full time job, and get all my personal/home responsibilities out of the way first thing in the morning, my mind is totally clear and I can focus on my clients and designs and I'm not worried about any dishes that may be lingering in the sink. :)
After 4pm I am a little more lax and run errands, make dinner and finish up on any housework and then try to just check my email once or twice after that. I'll touch on this more in another blog post, but when I didn't structure my day I found I was working from the moment I got up until I went to bed, with absolutely no life. Let's face it, that is no fun and you can burn out really quickly.
For those of you that work from home, how do you work best? Do you like to work in your PJ's and let your creative juices flow throughout the day, or are you a little OCD like me? :) I'd love to hear!
