5 tips to help you transition to working out of office

Most of my career before children was in sales so I never really worked from an office in a traditional sense outside of corporate internships. I’ve pretty much always had a home office even though I still had to take outside meetings daily, and I think a few key habits that started early for me made it an easy switch when I started working on my own projects full time. When I first took the leap to start a company of my own in 2009, there weren’t a lot of people to look at and there were really only two other people I knew who didn’t work a traditional Corporate America job at a Fortune 500 type of company that I could talk too about what to expect. Now it almost seems to be in fashion to be an entrepreneur. I was only working from home for a few months before I got scared of being 100% on my own and went back into sales while continuing to work weekends and evenings on my own company and didn’t transition until fully stopping working in sales another 2 years later after needing more flexibility in when I was working as a mother. If you are working for yourself of freelancing in any capacity there are five things I think can help you transition into being more productive when working on your own.

Set Up An Office Or Work Area

I feel like I always see these glamorized posts of people working from their bed or the beach, but it’s important to create a designated work space in your home where you can not only remove distractions (hellooooo pile of laundry), but also be able to shut a door and walk away from work at the end of the day to focus on your family or anything that isn’t your business around the clock. I am guilty of being the person who would get in the zone of a project and not come out of my hole until I was done which would make these vicious cycles of non-stop work, burnout, and recovery. Once I had kids, I had no choice but to try and learn how to set a time to stop (even if it meant I would pick back up for an hour or two in the evening) because it’s not like you can just skip picking your kids up from school because you are on a roll!

If there isn’t a spare room that you can use for an office, finding a designated space you can set up and make enjoyable to work in away from tv or your bed will help you get more done in a day. For anyone that has to take Skype calls or any type of video calls often, keep the background for calls in mind as you set your space up.

Schedules Are Life

In sales I would have to have my ‘routing’ planned for the week. This was a list of who I was going to see for the week written out by day and I would have to spend time before each meeting looking up my notes from the last meeting so I could plan out what my objective was going to be for going in. This set up a mentality where I would look at my week and figure out what I needed to do to drive objectives in my business forward and I’d time-block what needed to get done in a day to meet that objective so I never spent too much wasted time on things that didn’t matter. There were very few days for me from jump where I would look up and it would be the end of the day, but I hadn’t actually gotten anything accomplished.

I don’t care if I’m opening up a planner to write on paper or opening up a note application in my phone, but the first thing I’m doing for the day is create some kind of to-do list so that even if I get sucked down the rabbit hole (ugh. . . Instagram), I can always take a peek at my list to get back on track. I try and set timers to go off on my phone if I know I want to devote a solid chunk of time on something that requires deep thinking, but I’ve heard of friends who swear using productivity cubes like this to help them stay on track for the day. Schedule your day how you need to around your lifestyle and best times for productivity, but get that ish scheduled!

Limit Yourself From Constantly Checking Your Email

I started working before everyone had a Blackberry so at one point in my life, you couldn’t check your email unless it was early in the morning or late in the evening because you were expected to be in the field between 8am - 5pm. While on internship at Pfizer I remember hearing a few executives talk about the Blackberry they were all getting and everyone questioning if this was going to mean they had to answer emails around the clock now. Fast forward to now and it’s so hard to get out of the mentality of constantly scanning my email to see if I’m out of the loop about something as if I’m not working unless I’m responding back as fast as someone sent an email. While it’s important to stay connected, spending too much time on e-mail might distract you from more important tasks to drive your business forward.

Being A Founder/ Freelancer/ Entrepreneur Can Be Lonely So Find Your Circle

I’ve always been used to just talking to people on the phone during long car rides because I was pretty much always working on my own. That’s actually probably one reason why I jumped to get an iPhone when it first came out because I could check-in on Facebook and talk to my friends who were online at their desk all day. For anyone who came from more of a traditional office environment, they always talk about life as an entrepreneur being more of a major adjustment because they are used to being able to interact with their co-workers more often to bounce ideas off of or just to chat about whatever was on tv the night before. I missed out on that boat, but joining groups for entrepreneurs and setting out to attend events where I could also connect with other people in my industry were where I’ve met some of the people who really helped push me forward as my ‘business BFFs’ as they became people I could bounce ideas off of even though we may not have been working together. You may notice that you may start to hire, refer, and partner heavily based on the company you keep in your entrepreneurship circle.

 Self-Care is Healthcare

I used to think if you had time for self care, it was because you weren’t working enough. I thrived on a project I was working on being all-consuming and losing track of time because of whatever I was working on. I still do this sometimes, but the last piece of the puzzle that is sometimes the easiest for others is carving out time for self care. For me it means not working through lunch so I set an alarm at 1pm to make sure it’s not 3pm and I am starving. I’ve been working on it being more of a priority to stop to walk or even take a fitness class or else I’ll always say that’s an hour I’ll put off because ‘I don’t have time’. Rest was also one of the last things I would do and have finally started putting boundaries on how late I stay up working on things so I have time to reset to start again the next day without feeling like I’m at the brink of burn out. Some weeks I’m better at this then others, but I do attempt to make these three things priority that I will even schedule into my calendar. My husband may laugh when my iPhone does the lullaby ring so I know it’s getting close to when I need to lay down to get at least 7 hours of sleep, but I need that reminder to tell myself to slow down.

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Working at home can be lonely, require a lot more time than you expect, and it may not provide the stability or resources that comes with working for someone else in an office setting. While it may appear glamorous on Instagram, many of the people I know who go off to start something on their own are working far more hours than they even did from an office, so know there may be sacrifices you make to be able to have the flexibility of working from home. I hope these tips are helpful if you are exploring becoming an entrepreneur in any capacity. There will be ups and down, but remember to enjoy the ride!

Is there a tip you think I missed? DM it to me on Instagram @JasminePennamma. I’d love to hear it!