When you’re stuck in an office for eight hours a day, banging your head on your desk, and counting down the hours until you get to go home, working from home sounds like absolute heaven. No manager breathing down your neck, no one watching the clock when you go on your lunch break, and no awful fluorescent office lights. Not only that, you can work in your pajamas, decide your own hours, and if you become an affiliate marketer, you can even be your own boss entirely. This means every bit of work you do goes towards your own business.
Of course, working from home isn’t as wonderful as everyone thinks it is. There are days that you might not leave the house or interact with anyone at all, and it can be hard to motivate yourself when all you’d really like to do sometimes is sit down and watch some television.
If you’re going to become a successful affiliate marketer, you have to also understand how to work from home like a boss.
Create A Schedule
It’s time to start allotting time in your calendar that you dedicate to your work. And (this is the key): stick to it! So whether you simply knock out all your work from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. or you scatter your work out in two hour chunks throughout the day, plan it ahead of time.
This makes you accountable for your time, so you can look back and see if you’ve actually done the work when you said you would. If you’ve set aside an hour and a half to work on your social media but all you end up doing is messaging friends on Facebook, then you’re not really working.
It can be a bit of an adjustment when you first start the work-from-home lifestyle. Suddenly no one is watching when you arrive at work or how long you take when you go out for lunch. But if no one else is holding you accountable for your job, then you need to step it up and make sure you mentally show up for work—even if it’s in your own home.
Designate A Working Area
The worst thing you can do is become so obsessed with your work that you do it in bed, on your couch, or while you’re eating dinner. By doing this, you’ll blur the lines between work and home until you will always feel like you’re working. While you should start your online business and be totally determined, you must also give yourself a break sometime. And if you’re always working from home, that means allowing yourself the space to escape work.
It’s an investment, but a good desk and designated working area will help to put you in work mode, and allow you to get into “relaxing at home” mode when you’re not in that space. It can be in a separate room, if you have one, otherwise make space in your living room or bedroom.
Make Your Workspace Comfortable
It can sometimes feel hard to drag your feet out of bed and sit down at your computer, so make it a pleasant space to be in. The rules of the corporate world don’t apply here! You can put up fun posters, have whatever paperweights you’d like, and hang as many pictures of friends and family as you want. Go crazy with items that put a smile on your face and remind you why you started your own business in the first place.
Take Your Lunch Break
Working lunches seem like a great idea, but if you’re not careful you’ll go through an entire ten hour workday without ever getting up from your desk. Schedule a little bit of time in your calendar for lunch—anywhere from 20-40 minutes. This gives your mind a break and allows you to recharge for the rest of your day.
If you’ve decided to break up your work into smaller pieces throughout your day, then still make sure you give yourself downtime. If you’re balancing your work with running around and picking up kids or running errands, you’re not getting the mental break you really need.
Don’t Work Just From Home
If you can, change up your scenery from time to time. Take your laptop and work from a local coffee shop or pack up and head to the library for the day. Working from home is a wonderful luxury, but it certainly lacks in the human interaction department. If you’re feeling a little antsy, it could simply be weird to not encounter many people throughout your day, so make sure you get outside a bit. Even just a walk during a scheduled break or popping into a yoga class is better than spending all day working at home.
Have A Social Life
Most people work hard in the office so they can rush home, sit in front of the television, and veg out on Netflix shows. When you work from home, it’s actually kind of the opposite: you work throughout the day so that you can feel content to go out and meet up with people.
The good news is that you’re saving a bit of money when working from home. You’re able to write off a portion of your rent on your taxes, you don’t need to commute, and you’re more likely to cook your meals instead of eating out for lunch. This means you’ll have a little extra cash and don’t have to feel bad about going out for happy hour or getting dinner with people.
Get Outside
As an affiliate marketer, you’re inevitably going to spend a lot of time inside and in front of your computer. On busy days, that means you might never get outside to actually see daylight. Make sure that, in addition to scheduling your work time, social life, and other activities, that you schedule a little time to get outside. Even taking a walk for half an hour can clear your mind and make you much more efficient during your work time.
