Some general ideas I’ve had about how to go about working at home efficiently and effectively.
I suppose it is important that I stress how fortunate that I feel that I get to do the kind of work that I do and moreso that I get to do it from the comfort of my own home. Design work is a creative process and in the past when I’ve worked in hitech or in a studio I’ve consistently felt boxed in and unable to function to what I feel would be my highest level. That can be a very frustrating feeling.
For me, the solution has been to work from home. It hasn’t always been easy and over the last two or three years that I have been doing it, I’ve developed some methods, some tips and some general ideas that I’d like to share. These apply to both the freelance individual and those that work from home either full or part time.
Organize your Time
I can’t stress enough how important it is to get yourself organized. You will find it incredibly easy to constantly find other things to do besides working. Cooking, cleaning, reading, Facebook, Reddit, the beach, friends and family will distract you and keep you from focusing on the tasks at hand.
Solution: Make lists, set personal deadlines and stick by them. Make sure that you have a certain time that you start working and a certain time that you stop. Stick to it!
Set Limits
For workaholics, working from home can be a dangerous beast. You have so much to do (if you’re lucky!) and knowing when to stop or back off for a bit just doesn’t happen when it should. The ultimate danger here is one of burn-out. It is easier to do than you think. Frustration, anger, depression are all side-effects and honestly, who wants that? 
Solution: Stop working after a certain hour. Put weekends off-limits. Take vacation. These all sound like easy things to do, but once the work starts up it can be very difficult to actually do them. Exert your will and shape your life into one which allows for some down time.
Push!
I have a simple rule: if it takes less than fifteen minutes, it gets done now. Having a large list of little things can be overwhelming and every little bite-sized piece of work that you can knock off will really make the difference in the long-run, especially with complex projects. It also helps with making sure that things don’t fall between the cracks.
Solution: Do it now if you can!
Stay Connected and Online
It sounds almost silly in this day and age of high connectivity, but working from home necessitates a good connection. Pay the little extra and get fast internet if you can get it. I am impatient by nature and hate waiting for downloads and uploads. I hate it even more when what I am trying to do gets bogged down by technical limitations. Keep your computer hardware working and up-to-date as much as fits reasonably within your budget.
Stay Focused
It’s very easy to go off-track when you work on your own. I think that by nature, those that thrive in a work-at-home environment are the ones who have an independent streak. This doesn’t mean that you can go your own way as much as you like, for better or for worse. You will have to build your own framework and stay on the ball as much as you can.
Solution: Set daily tasks and do your most to achieve them. I like to use a little todo list application to organize what I will be doing each day. This leads me into my last little piece of advice:
Break your Projects Up
No project is really just one monolithic piece. They are composed of many little projects which fit together as a whole. In my case, as a designer, I can break each project up into design phases — creating a brief describing the functionality, the design phase, the implementation, etc. Each of these tasks themselves can be further divided into smaller ones.
Solution: Make many little tasks out of a bigger project. This helps immensely with organizing yourself, avoiding feeling over-whelmed and most importantly for me: with a feeling of daily accomplishment.
That’s about it. Working from home is a wonderful thing and if you can, I highly recommend it! I’d love to hear your ideas as I’m always looking for ways to make my days more fun and more efficient.
- Rami James
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