Working from home comes with several advantages after all – no overhead, free range of the kitchen, no dress code and the ability to sleep as late as we want and stroll from the bedroom to our computer.

However, there are also several disadvantages we should be aware of. Distractions from family, children or pets being the biggest issue we come across. Also, walking two feet from our bedroom to our office means we don’t get the exercise we should – and we’re increasingly becoming an unhealthy industry. It also means you lead a distinctly lonely work day  - and without a boss breathing down your neck you’re more apt to goof off on the internet.

Even with all of these disadvantages – I still wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world, nor would I bother with paying the high costs of renting an office space. Instead, I’ve aimed to become more productive and turn these into non-issues. How can you do it?

Distractions From Family & Pets

Our biggest issues normally stem from the distractions caused by loved ones. While it’s true that freelancers have a more flexible schedule and can often take more breaks, that doesn’t mean we don’t have strict deadlines of our own. I’ve found myself stopping work in order to play with my dogs or hang spend time with my husband, only to see the whole day go by without any work getting done.

While it may seem rude or inconsiderate to shut out the loved ones, it’s a necessary evil in order to get stuff done. Here are a few tricks that have worked for me (and some my hubby has used against me!):

• Shut the door. If you’re lucky enough to have a whole room dedicated as an office, sometimes it works best to just shut the door and drown out the noise.
• Leave the animals outside. Sometimes my doggies can get a little restless and drive me up the wall when I’m trying to concentrate, so if it’s a nice day out (and you have a fenced in yard), I’d leave them outside a little longer than normal so they can run off the energy and let me work.
• Put on headphones. Nikita uses this trick on me. When he’s trying to concentrate on work and I’m babbling on about nothing, he’ll put on his headphones. Eventually I realize he’s not listening and get tired of having him take off his headphones and repeat myself. Eventually I leave him alone. Not the nicest, but it works!

Pudgy Developers

Nobody likes a fat developer, and since I’ve gone freelance, I’ve notice a huge weight gain. So what have I done to remedy this? I moved across the world to London, where every day I’ve had to walk at least two miles to get anything accomplished.

Of course, that’s not going to work for the majority, or probably anyone else. But it’s important to make some life changes now before you get to the age where you end up having health problems. I like you guys and fully expect all of us to be coding together well into our triple digits!

Of of the main issues of working from home is grazing – I’ve noticed personally that I tend to stray into the cupboards for snack food quite often. If you do this to, go ahead and get rid of the junk food and stock up on healthy snacks and fruits. That why you’re at least eating healthy.

If you’ve got pets, now’s the time to give them some attention. Take a longer lunch and use it to walk them around the block, or play some sports with your kids. Relocate to the city if you can. I know personally that I could never stick to going to the gym or an exercise plan – I had to force myself to work out but working it into my daily routine. I currently live in the city about a mile from any public transport – so even if I decide to be lazy one day and take the subway, I still get 2 miles of exercise. I’ve already noticed a decrease in appetite, weight and general pudgyness since I got here 3 weeks ago.

Lonely – I’m so Lonely

Another difficult disadvantage of working from home is the loneliness. I tend to be a loner anyways so this didn’t bother me too much until I realized I worked so much and so alone, that I didn’t have many friends! I also lived in the middle of nowhere so it was hard to meet up with the friends I had and even harder to find fellow devs and designers to hang with.

Now, I’m finding I have a ton of friends and contacts in the area and am meeting up with one of them almost every day for lunch or dinner. This forces me to get out of the house AND get some exercise. It also helps networking wise, as we can talk about work much easier. Plus, it’s fun to finally get to put faces to twitter avatars, voices or emails.

If you live in an area with a lot of people, you can also try meeting clients in person. I used to be pretty firmly against this, as I felt it wasted too much of my day for little payoff, but I’ve started looking forward to these outings. I get to be social and get out of the house; plus see parts of the city I’ve never been to.I also often get a free lunch (yum!) and I feel better connected to my clients.

If you’re not in an area with a lot of people or clients, try working some place public, like a library or coffeeshop. Just be careful that you’re not in someplace distracting or you won’t get anything done.

Coworking

Coworking spaces are large offices that allow you to rent a desk, or even a whole space. They’re cheaper than actually renting your own office, plus you get to share space with like-minded individuals. Some of these places let you rent by the hour or day; others let you have an actual short lease.

I’ve never done this personally, but have been contemplating doing it once or twice a week here – just got to find a place close enough to be worth it.

What do you do to stay productive at home?

Let’s take a look at the proposal I got today. Upon reading, several red flags immediately popped up, and I hadn’t even talked to the “potential” client as of yet.

Already we have our first issue. The client doesn’t want any major changes to the IA or content. Basically they want a skin, not something that’s best for their users.

Here’s our second red flag, a list of plugins they’re telling me, the developer, what to use, instead of trusting that they’re paying me to know what should/shouldn’t be used. Also, it looks like they included everything under the sun, I bet dollars to doughnuts they don’t even need half of these.

Also, special prize goes to those who can spot the “special plugin”. After seeing this plugin list, I already decided not to work with this client – but wait! – there’s more.

Deadlines are inevitable and very understandable. But what isn’t is an entire laid out schedule of what the web designer or developer needs to do or abide by. Is two weeks really enough for a full design? Is another two weeks really enough for development of what they’re wanting? Tough cookies if it isn’t, they say.

Here we find an even worse red flag. So they’re not coming to you because they like what you do and want to work with you. No, instead they’re throwing their RFP to anyone and everyone who wants to agree to the ridiculous timeline. You should never, ever go into “competition” for any sort of work. Clients should come to you because they know you can deliver the best.

Moving on:

It’s always best to be open to your clients about those you may be partnering with to finish the project. However, it’s not up to the client about who you work with. It’s your choice. (Of course if they somehow had a terrible experience with that other person, that’s another story).

Ah last, but certainly not least. They acknowledge that RFPs take a lot of time, yet they don’t care that they’re throwing theirs out willy-nilly to everyone. Also, they’re now mandating how YOU will get paid, instead of allowing you to list out payment terms.

Designer & Developer Professionalism

Sometimes it’s tough to remember that you own a business. You’re not anyone’s employee, nor do you have to work with every client who comes your way. The clients you choose to work with reflect on you, and you’ll only end up attracting more of the same.

A person doesn’t walk into a doctor’s or lawyer’s office and demand that they work on their schedule and when(if) they’ll get paid. No – they work on that professional’s schedule and they agree to that professional’s terms of work, or they don’t work with them at all.

There’s no problem with clients checking out a few different companies to see who knows their stuff and is affordable, however, it’s completely wrong to open a “competition” like feel to the process, hoping that we’re so desperate for work, we’ll scramble over each other in order to do it.

You, The Client

I don’t even know who this client really is or what they’re wanting, but they’ve already given me plenty of reasons to turn down work with them. In order for us to give you the best work possible, we need to have conversations with you, learn what and who your company is, as well as invest time into the relationship. No professional designer or developer will compete to get your money.

I’ve begun to notice that there are three different types of people who run businesses (and by business, I’m including us solo freelancers): the complainers, the doers, and the ones that succeed. These three types of people approach their work in completely different ways, and almost always have completely different results.

If you find yourself identifying with one or the other, that’s ok, you can always change. Before I went into business, I was a complainer. Then I became a doer. Now, I’m hoping to become one of the ones that succeed.

The Complainers

The complainers are easy to spot – probably because they’re constantly complaining about something. In business, they’re always making some kind of excuse why they aren’t succeeding, why their projects are late, or why the “man” is constantly holding them back. Complainers are almost never successful – because they don’t want to be. Yep, you heard that right.

If complainers were successful, they’d never have something to complain about, so they subconsciously hold themselves back by not even trying. Why try when you know you’re going to fail, right? Here are some of the excuses and complaints I’ve heard from this group:

• I can’t succeed because of the economy.
• I can’t start a business because I have bills to pay.
• I can’t make it because the clients don’t want to pay my rates.

If you notice, most of the complainer’s status stems from one simple phrase: “I can’t do X because of X”. These people are happy to dump the responsibility of their lives on to someone else, because then they feel they can’t be blamed for it. How can you blame someone who worked 30 years in a job they hated so they could pay their mortgage – right?

Experience has taught me that if you don’t task risks, then you’ll never get ahead. Taking risks are always scary and there are always consequences, but the cool thing about life is that you can always start over. Did you quit your job to start a business, only to find it wasn’t working for you? Guess what – there are always more jobs.

You’ll never go hungry as long as you have the drive to succeed. Of course, there may be lean times or slow periods in business, but the successful ones can always make it by thinking of other ways to make some money. And yes, that can include taking menial jobs to make it through.

The Doers

The doers are not a bad group to be in. They get things done, and they do them well. They have to the drive to push forward and continue working where others would have given up. It’s this drive though, that can also be their downfall. Getting things done and making can be an illusion of success and it’s often where we stop.

I found myself in this category about a year after I started my freelance business. Things were going well, I was working hard and making great money. I kept doing. But then I realized that I hit a plateau and simply doing wasn’t, well, doing it for me anymore.

Being a doer at the beginning of a business’s life is exactly where you want to be – but if you don’t move from this category after the ball gets rolling, you’ll wake up 5 years down the road to find you’re still exactly where you were when you first starting succeeding – and no one wants to be static.

You may wonder when you’ll know it’s time to stop being a doer and start being one of the ones that really succeed. There isn’t a time period or a number of clients or even a set amount of profit you’ve made that tells you it’s time. All I can say is to stay alert and there’ll come a time where you’ll feel that plateau. Sometimes it comes when the projects you’ve been working on bore you. When you no longer have to market your services and you’re booked up for months. When you notice nothing is changing. You and your business should always be changing.

And The Ones That Succeed

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that they want to belong in this category – but not everyone has the drive or willpower to actually do anything about it. You can’t just wake up and be one of the ones that succeed, which is where the complainers often fall short. No, you have to be a doer for a while before you can be a success story.

So how do you become one of the ones that success, and just what is success? While it can certainly mean different things to different people, I like to think of it as sort of a confidence and a drive to becoming a household name. It certainly isn’t making lots of money – you can hit that in the doer stage. It’s a confidence that allows you to make what you want to make, do what you want to do, and have those in your industry know who you are.

The ones that succeed are always coming up with new ways to “get out there”. They don’t like the status quo, nor do they sit at home and work all day. I’m struggling with trying to enter into this category myself – it’s not an easy stage and takes a while to evolve the kind of mindset it requires.

The ones that succeed get out there – they do work, but they do other things as well. They speak at events, they write books, they contribute to the community and offer up high quality freebies. The often teach as well, in the form of workshops, guest professors, or after-school events for children. Notice a trend here?

It’s interesting to watch one of the ones that succeed do their thing. When they’re at conferences, they don’t just hang in the corner like I do – they’re in the middle mingling. They know everyone and everyone knows them. This isn’t a popularity contest or anything – they don’t buy their Twitter followers – they’re just that good. Everyone wants to know them, and they do their best to know everyone.

Getting into this category takes a lot of hard work and time. I personally am aiming for 2012 to be my year to be one of the ones that succeed. I’d like to finally get out in multiple conferences and even do some speaking and book writing. Who knows, perhaps I’ll succeed?

The life of a freelancer might seem somewhat idealistic, but in reality it’s hard work and your work ethic and your willpower needs to remain strong in order to succeed.

I have been “Self Employed” for almost 6 years now and even this far in there is still a learning curve that occasionally jumps out and bites you in the ass, I wanted to write a piece here today to pass on some of my experiences and hopefully save you the grief, time and money it would cost if you fall into the same pit holes.

Ethic, Ethic, Ethic

When I started out working on my own I started my first day in lounge pants at 10am, I fired up my computer and checked my email and a few of my forums and clicked though a few funny links. It was then lunchtime, so I took a 1 hour 30 minute lunch break before returning to “work.”

I then procrastinated a little more before I had to leave to pick my eldest child up from school, once I returned from the school run I decided to finish early that day. This was a pattern I started and after 3 weeks I failed to do a single piece of work.

I soon realised my work ethic was truly awful so addressed it, each day from then to present day I wake and get dressed like I would do if I was based inside an agency, I start work at 9am and finish at 5pm taking a 45 minute lunch and a 10 minute break in the morning and afternoon.

What I learned was even though you have no boss watching over your shoulder you still need to go into your working day alert, and focused on the jobs at hand.

Working Environment

This is one that trips up many of my own friends and clients, your work space has to do what it says on the tin, and you need a space to work.

Sitting in the lounge with the TV on watching talk shows whilst perching a laptop on your knee will never work, you need to find a dedicated room for you to work, whether you have a spare room or you work in the dining room.

Distractions will severally affect your potential to compete your tasks and you won’t feel like you are “at work” so to speak, ensure you have an “office” and stay in there!

Friends and Family

This one is a killer, when you are your own boss friends and family think you can take a break when you like and will drop in for coffee or will call and keep you on the phone for hours.

This seriously impacts on your working day and although it is hard to be so brutally honest with your loved ones, you need to make a stand and say “I’m at work, don’t call, don’t drop by I’m busy between 9am and 5pm.”

Turn off your phone or put it on silent, don’t log in to your personal email or Facebook you can catch up with them at lunch or AFTER work.

No, No, No

When freelancing your every job title rolled into one, most of the time you are your own project manager. Clients will test you and some will demand more than the brief and budget allows, sometimes you have to say “NO.”

By not doing so the client gets more bang for his buck, this leaves you out of pocket and will put you behind on your deadlines, if it falls outside the brief and budget you need to say no.

It’s All About the Benjamin’s

Many freelancers will under quote and do extra work for free, whilst you might feel you need to do this to keep the money rolling in you are short changing yourself and under valuing your ability, if you do extra you invoice for extra.

Another big thing is doing your own taxes, it can be stressful and you will most likely have little idea for what you can and can’t do, take time out to find out what you can claim as a freelancer. Many organisations have resources to help the self employed, it might take a little time to read through and grasp, but it will more likely than not leave you better off financially.

Conclusion

Some of these points might strike many of you as obvious and might well be things you have been doing for years, but every so often the self employed can slip into bad habits, a few times a year I like to sit back and review my work ethics and see how I can improve and how I can project manage to a greater level. If you feel I have missed anything crucial out of this article please feel free to comment.

When I started freelancing over two years ago, my original goal was to make enough money to be able to pay bills with a little left over, and to be able to choose the kinds of projects I really wanted to work on. I met these goals a lot quicker than I thought I would, in addition to getting married to a back-end programmer who likes to work on projects with me.

So I’ve been at this crossroad for awhile now, and while I’ve been putting it off in pursuit of other things, I feel it’s finally time to make a decision on many important things this week:

1. Do I get serious about iPhone app development and really start to study it? I really enjoy it.
2. Should I move my web development business to mobile development – both web and app? Or should I offer both what I do now AND iPhone app development? Or should I bank on one of my personal projects taking off and no longer accept client projects? Or both?
3. If I decide to stay in front-end web development, what’s next? Should I start investing my time in offer extra services to clients, like responsive web development? Or learn more platforms? Or continue in-depth learning of HTML/CSS and WordPress?
4. Should I start to transition my online persona to Amber Makeyev (my now official name), and how to do so without losing all the SEO and name-recognition I’ve gained?
5. Should I start to transition my business from a one-person website to something more in general, now that my husband has teamed up with me on a lot of projects?
6. Do I really want to continue living outside of Nashville TN, in our nice home, next to my family, or move somewhere else, in a dream location? I fell in love with Ft. Lauderdale, FL, St. Thomas VI, and I’m now in my dream country, the UK. U.K. is REALLY expensive to live in…so I’d have to really up my project rates again just to be comparative to my lifestyle here. And we’re wanting to start a family and I’d hate to be away from my family when we do.

Arg so as you can see, a lot of turmoil over here. Would love your thoughts though, and how you dealt with these kinds of issues yourself.

Why is Apple so successful?

Because while other companies are busy trying to catch up to the iPad’s success, Apple has already moved on to the “next big thing”. Apple no longer cares about the iPad….they never play catch up and that’s why they win. All other companies try to chase down Apple’s successes and fail (think Zune…).

How can you emulate this into your business?