Nine steps to follow when working from home

By Randy Greer
Although working at home saves you commuting time and office rent, combining your home and office does present some special challenges.
Working at home can seem like the ideal situation - no commuting hassles, more time to spend with the family, the freedom to set your own work hours. However, combining your home and office environments presents many special challenges. If you want to make working at home work for you, you need to understand those challenges and meet them head on.
1. Choose the right business. Not every business can be run successfully from home. Consider the appropriateness of your business as a home based business. A business that involves large machinery, lots of inventory, frequent truck deliveries and pickups, or lots of foot traffic from customers or associates is definitely not a good candidate.
2. Be professional. Contrary to the popular stereotype of home based entrepreneurs being able to 'work in their pajamas', you must be businesslike and project a professional image if you want to be seen as running a legitimate business. Keep regular office hours, get business stationery printed up, have a business phone and voice mail or message system, and keep your office neat, organized, and attractive.
3. Optimize your work space. Don't make do with a makeshift work space. Locate your office in an area of your home that can be dedicated to business activities and affords you some privacy. Choose a space as far as possible from street noise and other distractions. Invest in functional furniture and the right equipment and set up your home office in a way that lets you be comfortable, productive, and organized.
4. Minimize distractions and interruptions. Staying focused is hard enough without the additional distraction of friends calling, neighbors dropping by, and children clamoring for attention. Screen your phone calls and filter your emails. Let your friends and relatives know what your work hours are and explain that during those hours you'll be at home working.
5. Plan your work and work your plan. Use a 'to do list' every day with the tasks you need to accomplish in order of decreasing priority. At the end of the day check your progress, and put any unfinished tasks at the beginning of the next day's list.
6. Set goals and evaluate your progress. Setting goals and tracking your progress toward them will give direction to your efforts and keep you moving forward. Set both long-term and short-term goals that are realistic given your resources and that produce measurable results, then reward yourself every time you reach one of your goals.
7. Separate your home and work lives. Keep your work life separate from your home life as much as possible, both physically and emotionally. Keep your work space off limits to household members and ask them to respect your work hours by not interrupting you unless absolutely necessary. If you have kids who aren't old enough to amuse themselves while you work, hire a sitter to keep them occupied while you concentrate on work.
8. Keep your balance. Don't let work dominate every aspect of your life. Commit to a 'quitting time' and stick to it unless a real emergency arises. Take a break and devote some time to your hobbies, getting together with friends, a change of scenery, getting some exercise, or just doing nothing. You'll come back to your work refreshed and stave off burnout.
9. Get some help. Don't feel you have to do everything yourself. As your business grows, use some of the profits to hire help. Outsource, streamline, or automate where you can and hire an assistant (or a 'virtual assistant') to help you if the work load has become more than you can reasonably manage.

Home workers in the UK encouraged to claim tax

Broadband, the internet and mobile devices such as BlackBerrys and personal digital assistants have made working from home much easier. But the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is urging homeworkers to claim all the tax reliefs available to them from the taxman.
If you run a business from home, there are tax reliefs available. Chas Roy–Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA, says:

“If you have to work from home, HM Revenue & Customs’ has a website that
explains the benefits which are payable for home workers — tax relief is
available for the extra household expenses that have to be paid if working from
home. Typically these extra expenses include:

• the extra cost of gas and electricity to heat and light your work area




• business telephone calls




• the use of a car.

A percentage of tax relief is available based upon how much business use is
incurred. In addition a percentage of the 20% capital allowances may also
available on your vehicle based upon the percentage of business use.

You may also be entitled to a deduction for items used for your business —
either a capital allowance deduction for computer equipment or a straight
forward deduction for some items such as stationary and paper."

Also, there are other tax reliefs available for those who are an employee of a company, but have to work from home:
A flat rate deduction of £3.00 per week (from 2008–09) for each week that worked at home. This doesn't include the cost of business telephone calls. A larger amount if extra expenses are higher than £3.00 – but the taxman will have to see how these figures have been calculated. Chas Roy–Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA, says:

“HMRC makes it very clear that you will not be able to receive tax relief on
domestic expenses that are being paid, such as mortgage payments. And no reliefs
are available when it comes to using services such as phones and internet which
are also used for personal usage. There has to be a clear demarcation.

It is important to claim all tax reliefs if you are running a business from
your home, or if you are working as an employee at home; however small the
relief payments may be, it is still important to claim them. That old adage of
looking after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves is certainly
relevant in this case.”

Home workers in Scotland on the rise

Home is not only where the heart is; for one in nine Scottish workers it is also where their work is according to The Herald. A rise in the numbers who choose, or are allowed to, work from home was shown in findings from the Scottish Household Survey, issued in November 2008 by Scottish Government statisticians.
The trend has been upward since the question was first asked nine years ago, when one in 14 workers were counted as home workers for at least part of the working week. A major factor behind the change has been the growth in access to broadband, which is now linked to 44% of homes throughout Britain.
The move to home working, or tele-commuting, is being encouraged by the Scottish Government, as part of the strategy to reduce the environmental damage caused by commuting and traffic congestion.
It includes those who are self-employed, and some whose entire job is done from home. One of the growth areas has been among travel agents, replacing the cost of high street shops.
However, a survey of British employers published in May 2008 found more than two-thirds of them never or only occasionally accept requests from employees to work from home, with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development finding the bosses feared they would not have sufficient control over staff.
Yet only 8% of employers in the same survey found that home workers were less productive, and 30% thought they can be more productive.
Managers also say the long-term impact of the social and employment shift is that they need less office space. Telecom company BT has 20% of its staff working full-time from home, and claims to have saved £70m as a result.

Success story
George and Barbara Brown have run their leadership management consultancy business from their home in the south side of Glasgow for four years.
Mr Brown said: "Economic reasons were behind the decision. The cost of rent, electricity, fuel for travel costs were all reflecting on the price I was charging to customers. Our clients are mainly local authorities so our customers were ultimately the ratepayers."
Mr Brown was not surprised at the rise in home working. He recommends it for other small businesses, especially when starting out to help with costs.

About At Work Anywhere

The At Work Anywhere blog is the introduction to www.atworkanywhere.com which will be launched in January 2009.

The blog is about and for people who already work from home or from anywhere, or who would like to be in that position; freelancers, contractors, teleworkers, people running their own businesses, work from home mums (WFHM) and small and medium businesses.
At Work Anywhere is the brainchild of Greg Player and Victoria Player. It was a 'back of a cigarette packet concept' created out of need.
We wanted to find jobs where we could work from home/anywhere for different reasons, but we weren't interested in scams, 'buy and sell on', low end jobs, etc.
We wanted professional jobs that matched our backgrounds, challenged us and could be done from anywhere as long as we had an internet connection.
We didn't find much, did some research and discovered there were quite a few people out there in the same boat, thus the At Work Anywhere concept was born.
So At Work Anywhere will be a social and professional networking community for anybody who is or wants to be a contractor, freelancer or homeworker, and who has a professional skill set to offer.
In the meantime we want to write about and discuss issues affecting home workers, as well as keep you up to date with our own progress! Feedback is welcome.