Home Based Business

So many freelancers and home workers make the mistake of filling their time to get their new business off the ground. For many, in order to get that first client, they take a stance that no sacrifice is too small. They take a bullet for the cause of making it as a work at home freelancer. Many enter into the world of self-employment during their midlife ignoring the fact that they are not as young as they used to be. They stay awake countless hours to get those projects turned in by their deadlines and ignore all warnings to lighten up a little and look after their own health. However a self-employed work at home freelancer must realize that if he or she gets sick, then business stops. Also, many times these professionals have no health care coverage and getting sick can have a more disastrous effect on the business. If you are going to be independent and work from home, you have to take care of yourself. Here are a few ways:

When you work from home, leave your desk regularly. Most who work from home as self-employed freelancers have no healthcare plan or workman’s compensation to fall back on should they develop any injuries from working at a desk too long. Computer users who spend too long typing on a keyboard and using a mouse can become victims of such injuries as carpal tunnel and RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). These can be very serious and painful injuries and can affect your ability to work. If you are self-employed then you risk loss of income due to your injury.

You will also find that you are prone to circulation problems if you do not get up and leave your desk at regular intervals. This is especially true as you get older. The problem is the same one as experienced by many long-haul air travelers: Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT. DVT is very dangerous and can result in a blood clot that can kill you. Don’t sit at your desk too long.

When you work from home, don’t ignore getting sleep. This is the biggest mistake freelancers who work from home make: not getting enough sleep. This is because when you are starting out in your new business, you have an extreme desire to succeed and no job is too big and you will work whatever hours it takes to get it done. But isn’t this defeating the purpose of why you wanted to work from home in the first place? Remember? You wanted to work from home so as to have more time for yourself and your family. Yet you are working 15-20 hours a day. This is madness.

You will find that if you continue to work at the sacrifice of proper rest and sleep that you will begin to gain weight. This is because you eat and you sit at your desk and that is about all you do. The result is that you do not burn off the calories you need to in order to maintain healthy weight.

And it is not just about weight. You cannot produce quality work without the proper amount of rest but many ignore this principle anyways. For example, if you are a freelance writer, try this simple experiment: 1) Stay up all night writing, 2) Get some sleep, and 3) Read again what you wrote with no sleep. What you wrote during that sleep-deprived period should be enough to convince you that you cannot produce work of high quality without rest.

Reward yourself when you work from home. When you work from home, you no longer have the positive perks of a pat on the back from your boss or a year-end bonus. To keep yourself motivated when you work from home, it helps if you reward yourself after an accomplishment. In other words, when you accomplish something significant, leave your desk and go have fun.