One of the attractions of working at home is the vision of freedom it invokes — no time clock, no time sheets, and no one to account for how you spend your time. Yes, it is an attractive proposition, but like so many attractive propositions there is a heavy downside — you are likely wasting a lot of time.
After a spate of relatively unproductive days when my “To Do” list seemed to grow exponentially every time I looked at it I knew something had to change. Working from home, I realized there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all my goals.
I now have a spreadsheet and agenda for the day and I have improved my productivity and reduced my stress immeasurably. If you don’t think you need a schedule for your home when working remotely, then think again.
After studying my time and chatting with some other work-at-home folks, I discovered five reasons to embrace the schedule:
- It’s too easy to waste time doing non priority tasks
- It’s too easy to get sidetracked or distracted from your current task
- Unscheduled work time can often overlap into your free time until you don’t have any free time at all
- Your free time can overlap into your work time until you fall behind with important projects
- Concentrating your time and effort on highest priority projects means more gets done
You may actually find it more freeing than restrictive.
