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?

I stumbled across 12412.org when looking at Paul Davis’s work. Consisting of three developers including Paul, Anthony Killeen, and Stephen Fulljames, 12412 aims to log their activities throughout 2012 as they choose a new technology or technique every month to learn and play with.

I thought this was a fantastic idea. I’ve had an insanely busy 2011 and haven’t spent much time learning new things like I should. What better way than to make a goal to learn something new every month? I thought I’d take their idea and list out a few items of my own that I want to do some research on and learn.

January

January’s going to be a short and busy month for me, due to moving across the seas to London. So I thought I’d start the year off a bit easy by doing some research on SASS. I’m very skeptical on this technique, but promised to at least read about it.

February

Inspired by Jeff Croft’s tumblog, I want to make my own to house all of my social media updates. I plan to incorporate Twitter, Instagram, Ravelry, Pinterest, Goodreads, Dribbble, Foursuare and Codesnippit. Building this will force me to learn how to work with APIs, while extending my knowledge of PHP in tying them together.

March

I plan on finishing my Objective-C book that I’ve been working on for so long. After that, I need to make a decision whether to give iPhone development some serious commitment, or move on.

April

Build a premium WordPress theme with admin panels. I haven’t had a chance to build any custom admin panels before, so this will be another great learning experience.

May

Again I want to further my knowledge of PHP and create some kind of user submission gallery site. I’m thinking along the lines of responsive and CSS3 submissions.

2012

That’s all I’m planning for now. Who knows what the next few months will bring in our world. What do you think about 12412?

I’m constantly changing the way I work and trying to make my workflow as smooth and quick as possible. I’m always interested in how others work, so I thought I’d share what works for me. Feel free to share yours in the comments!

I make use of OSX’s spaces feature, so I have three different “desktops”. One for development, one for surfing/email and one for client/task management.

Desktop 1

My space for development work, I like to keep Coda open on the main window, and Photoshop open on the secondary menu so I can what I’m coding. I also like to keep the entire week’s worth of PSDs that need coding open at once, so I can see how much longer I have to go.

Desktop 2

Used for the browser and email, it allows me to check sites quickly, while clicking on links in the email and RSS without swapping desktops. I now prefer to use Chrome for all browsing and development. The built-in web tools are fantastic, and a lot faster loading than Firefox. When in testing mode, I’ll also have VMWare Fusion open here.

Desktop 3

Used for all the boring business stuff. I’ve got iCal open on the right for my client and personal schedules. I also keep Wunderlist open behind it for personal to-do items. On the right, I keep Billings open to track time, estimates and invoices.

What about you guys? Have you found something that works quickly for you?

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.

While this is great and allows you to focus on working instead of doing the boring business stuff, it can also be harmful if you continue to let the business run itself for a long length of time. You could end up working on projects you hate, with clients you despise, twenty four hours and seven days a week.

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While it’s okay to do this from time-to-time, it’s not okay on a regular basis, your projects either start being late or you’re forced to work off-hours to make up for it. The way your office is set up plays a big part in whether you’re more or less productive throughout the day. There are several ways to help it speed along your work.

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