Motivating yourself while working from home.

Oh the joys of working from home and setting your own agenda.

I wish that this was true but I offer both some advice and also some words of warning if you are looking to do the work from home lifestyle.

I started working from home in around 2006/7 and did this purely as I could not afford offices, I started a small media company up doing various things related to marketing, design and promotion.

Web sites, video, graphic design.

In all honesty it made a lot of sense as I also had a dog I needed to take care of and not sure that going to work is fair on a needy mongrel.

So I took the life of working from home in my stride, got up early got focused, dealt with clients etc etc.

The truth was that I was actually very motivated initially and things seemed to take of very well, the issues I found later on were that I started to go less and less outside despite having the freedom to do so, I literally only ever took the dog for a walk two times a day, yet worked about 14 hours in total most days.

Now I am looking at myself once again.

See I have diversified from a business in its traditional manner and started looking at affiliate marketing and how to make a living in this way.

And with a fair few skills under my belt it felt so right a couple of months ago, I was doing the keyword research, working out layouts for my sites and functionality that would both help visitors and create me money in the long run, checking out affiliate networks and joining them all.

So a few of my own creations are up now, obviously URLS with pertinent user searched terms and in a variety of niches.

But here is lesson number one about working on the web and from home:

GET FOCUSED

Putting up 12 sites in a couple of weeks is obviously tough but can be done, the problems I face when I spend time at my computer are that I read around subjects, get distracted, have thoughts about other things, doubt areas that I am working on and simply feel pretty pissed off with it all at times, coupled with the fact I have no one on my wave length work wise to talk to or indeed cry with on a day to day basis, its a pretty lonely life, but obviously my own choice, though thanks must be given to my girlfriend who has been highly supportive and a much needed sounding board on this new venture..x

Lesson number two:

NETWORK IN REAL

Over the last year I have got off my backside and actually set foot out of the front door, honest.

But I do feel I should do more of this, networking is important and I dont mean selling your wares necessarily, I mean in a simple friendship kind of way.

There is almost always something beneficial about getting yourself in front of other people and learning or sharing ideas, so I took myself off to various free seminars related to business and did not really learn a massive amount it has to be said but I felt like I had done something decent which in turn helped boost my productivity the next day, call it a break of sorts.

This is by and large a rant at what has been a pretty crap day seeing no progress with sites I have been populating with content and checking stats. I realise I am very early in my days at this game despite a wealth of theoretical knowledge, actually getting results is another matter.

Will keep posting and hopefully will look back on this and laugh a little but hope it helps others a touch in thinking twice about working from home!