Whichever your reason is for starting a side hustle, choosing to put in the time outside of your day job is a powerful investment in your future, but it will also take a fat bite out of your spare time.

In the past year alone, my side business as a freelance content marketer has helped me quit my day job while nearly doubling my income and cutting my workweek in half by signing a single high-value client.

I’ve landed contributor agreements with Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and my website recently had its 1 millionth reader thanks to all of my hard work creating in-depth content in the hours outside of my day job.

1. Don’t quit your job before you start a business

Don’t quit the job that serves as your primary source of income without already having steady revenue and traction with your side business. Even if you have a nice cushion of savings set aside, it’s easier than you think to burn through it and that’s a lot of pressure to place on yourself.

I can’t emphasize this enough. Don’t quit your job right away. You need to take your time in fully vetting an idea, learning about your target market, and testing that idea with them before making the solo decision that your idea must be great and therefore instantly profitable.

Having the time to continue thinking things through and seek the advice of others will greatly benefit your side business, rather than rushing through the creation process with tunnel vision toward your goal of launching.

Even more importantly, unless you’re working on a high-growth startup and can secure investor funding, you’re going to need some form of sustainable income before your side business is able to become a sole source of income for you. This is where your job comes in because it’s essentially an investment that fuels the growth of your side business.

The last thing you need is the stress and strain of worrying about your cash flow early on while you’re still trying to figure out how to hit the accelerator on your side hustle. I’ve made that exact mistake, and in turn, had to make some difficult sacrifices to keep the business alive and growing.

Starting your business while working a full-time job will undoubtedly be difficult, but it’s doable. Take these steps into account and you’ll be well on your way to becoming your own boss. Imagine that awesome feeling.

Up till now I just told you what NOT to do.

So when do you quit your job?

Only quit your job when your side business reaches financial stability (steady and predictable income) that can support your lifestyle.

2. Before taking the first step, first make the commitment

This will be difficult, it will strain your relationships, and you’ll continually be forced to make tough decisions when it comes to how you allocate your time, which is now your most precious resource. It doesn’t get easier over time, either.

In fact, the more successful your side business becomes, the more ruthless you’ll have to become at managing opportunities and deciding what you can afford to take on with your limited amount of time. Having a side business will be an incredibly challenging experience. It should be.

The pace at which you’re able to build your side business is directly correlated to the amount of time you’re able to free up each week to work on growing the business.

The first thing you should do before setting out on starting your side business is making a written pledge to yourself. Treat this pledge like a contract; one that outlines the short-term sacrifices you’re willing to make in order to create the lifestyle you want in the long term.

After that, we create a list of all the activities and responsibilities you have with the corresponding time commitments they command each week. We take note of the ones you can afford to remove or lessen your involvement with for at least the immediate future and let them know you’re stepping back a bit to focus on a new project that means a lot to you.

Once you’ve unlocked some time for your side business each week, it’s time to figure out when you work best so that you can start carving out some of your best hours to allocate toward your project.

Be selfish and give yourself the best hours of your day.

3. Learn from other people’s mistakes

However, when you’re new to working for yourself, there are a lot of potentially crippling mistakes to be made that can push success even further off into the distance. Today, we’re going to explore some of those mistakes (I’ve made most of them myself), give you detailed insights on how to avoid them, and build a foundation for learning how to grow your business before you quit your 9-5 job.

Making mistakes when you start out is almost inevitable, but the amount and severity of those mistakes can be reduced. I’ll try to give you the wisdom you’ll need to avoid the worst of your mistakes, based on my experience.

Video: how to learn from other people’s mistakes

4. Define which skill sets are required to start your side business

Be honest with yourself. What are you good at? What are you great at? Where is there room for improvement? If you want to be successful in starting your side business quickly, you need to maximize the time you spend doing what you’re great at and work to either outsource your weaknesses or avoid getting into a business where you’ll be forced to use them in the first place.

You likely possess at least some of the necessary skills to bring your side business to life, but if you don’t, you’re now faced with a tough decision. Spend time learning a new skill or outsource to someone else who can help. There’s no right or wrong answer, it depends solely upon your spending threshold, urgency, and desire to learn new skills.

If the skill is going to be an ongoing, core need for the future of your business, and you’re genuinely interested in the subject matter, you owe it to yourself to invest the time and become an expert at it. This isn’t a race, and you’ll greatly benefit from investing in building the skills you’re interested in.

For the sake of keeping startup costs as low as possible, you’re going to need to learn some specific skills in order to pull off starting your own business. You should, however, be constantly looking for and evaluating opportunities to outsource your weaknesses, when possible.

Video: Build a side business you have passion for

5. Validate your idea before building something nobody wants

In an intensive study of why startups fail according to 101 founders, the #1 reason most entrepreneurs report failing is a lack of market need for their product (cited by over 42% of the failed companies). This really highlights the need to fully validate your idea and get honest feedback from paying customers before you start building, creating, and spending money. Let alone consider quitting your day job on a whim to pursue just an idea.

It’s human nature to think we’re right and that our ideas are always amazing. As entrepreneurs, we have a lot of pride when it comes to our work. Unfortunately, our business concepts and product ideas are often not fully thought out, useful, or even properly researched.

There’s an art and a science to objectively validating your business idea. It’s easy to take off with an exciting new project in mind and work inside of your little bubble without ever involving anyone else for feedback during the process. When you emerge on the other side, you would be lucky to have created something that is received well in the marketplace or even has a market of paying customers in the first place.

Keep that excitement you have. Channel it into a positive, calculated direction, and intelligently test your way into assumptions about your potential new side business. Use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Trends to get an accurate picture of how many people are searching for solutions related to keywords that describe what your product or service would do for your customers.

6. Determine your competitive advantage

A competitive advantage is defined as the unique advantage that allows you as a business to generate greater sales or margins, and/or acquire & retain more customers than competitors. It’s what makes your business, your business.

This can be in the form of your cost structure, product offering, distribution network, customer support, or elsewhere in the business. If you’re going to start a business, it needs to be unique in some ways.

An example of a very powerful competitive advantage would be owning the exclusive rights to a brand new microprocessing chip that Apple is 100% going to need to include in every iPhone they build moving forward. Now, something like this is very rare. Apple hires some of the best & brightest in the world to cut down on the possibility of things like this happening and they work with outside suppliers who can guarantee these types of products as well.

Your strongest competitive advantage may be your own personal skill set, your unique experience, storytelling ability, industry knowledge, strategic relationships, or your personal brand that you’ve built. The strength of your competitive advantage will greatly affect your early results in learning to sell your product or service. Your competitive advantages need to be built into everything you do as an entrepreneur.

7. Set measurable and realistic business goals

Without setting attainable business goals and realistic deadlines for yourself, you’re going to spend a lot of time spinning your wheels. It’s hard to get anywhere if you don’t know exactly where you’re going.

In my experience, it works best to set daily, weekly, and monthly goals for my side business. It’ll help you stick with both short-term and long-term objectives, especially if you want to start a freelance business that depends very heavily upon driving meaningful results for your clients in tandem with regularly bringing new business in the door.

In the beginning, your daily goals are most likely small wins or to-do list types of items. I use the iPhone & Mac App, ToDo to handle my daily schedule and track the small wins for my day. It allows you to physically check things off your list, which has a strong psychological effect on me.

Weekly goals are the more significant wins that likely can’t be completed in just one morning or evening’s worth of work. An example of a weekly goal would be finishing one solid blog post designed to drive in traffic that’ll be checking out your brand new product. Since there are a lot of different components that can go into the creation of a great blog post, this is a realistic weekly goal.

Monthly goals start to become big-picture-focused. If you’re trying to build pre-launch buzz for your product or service, a one-month goal could be getting your first 100 email subscribers that are interested in learning more about your product once you launch. Month 2 could then be to double or triple that list size, or to get your first working prototypes ready for user testing. This will vary greatly depending on the type of business you’re in.

The further out you start planning your goals and deadlines, the more difficult it will become to make them realistic. You start to depend on assumptions of progress in certain areas, or of things outside your control coming together by specific dates. It requires some flexibility and you shouldn’t allow yourself to get overly stressed. Nevertheless, having these defined goals and dates set is what’s going to keep you on track and moving forward.

8. Map your business plan in detail

How are you going to reach your goals? It’s great to have a ton of exciting milestones, but if you have no real plan on how you’re going to hit those targets, then you’re really just hoping and wishing rather than putting in the hard work that’s needed to create the business.

It’s one thing to set your goals, and yet an entirely different activity to map out exactly how you’re going to get to points B, C, D, and beyond. If you find yourself questioning how to make it to your milestones, take the initiative to seek outside advice from friends, family, or personal mentors.

Be proactive. Nobody can do this for you, but you won’t be able to do it all on your own, either. Your ability to problem-solve and navigate around your obstacles will determine the level of success with your side hustle.

Here’s an example of mapping the route to achieving one of my goals from above. Let’s say my daily goal on a Monday is to finish all of the copy content for a blog post I’m planning on publishing. The weekly goal that this maps back to is pulling together the entire blog post, including all of the other assets like beautifully designed images, links a well-thought-out keyword strategy, and influencer distribution that will make this post truly awesome.

Moving up to the monthly level, launching that blog post and seeding it out to friends, family, mentors, and the rest of my network is designed to get 100 initial supporters committed to buying my product once it has been fully produced. This is a proof of concept and tells me that there’s a desire for that product in the marketplace.

9. Take care of all the legal issues required for your new business

Starting an LLC on your own is a time-consuming process. Fortunately, there are many services that can help you with starting a company. Such LLC websites greatly facilitate the paperwork process. Therefore, the popularity of such platforms is absolutely justified.

But business owners still face a problem: which LLC formation service to choose for business incorporation? After all, there are a huge number of platforms providing such services. Each of them offers its own list of services, prices, and have their own pros and cons.

It is difficult to make an informed decision when a person is overwhelmed with so much chaotic information about services found in different corners of the Internet. To do this, you need to conduct a whole study and compare several dozen options according to various criteria.

Or refer to the ready-made relevant comparative characteristics of the best LLC websites to form an LLC, where the most important aspects such as the work of the support service, the quality, and timing of business formation, customer reviews have already been analyzed by specialists and are presented in a convenient form. So, choosing the best LLC service for starting a company will not be a difficult task and will not take so long.

10. Outsource everything someone else can do cheaper at similar quality

This one is all about focus. Look for opportunities to outsource every possible part of your business creation that you can, so that you can free up more time to do what only you can do within your business.

The point is that you need to be doing only what you do best. While it would be great if you could code your own website to test out your digital service idea, if you don’t already command a knowledge of engineering, you’re looking at a few months of dedicated learning time just to get to the point where you’ll be able to understand the basics.

If you’re comfortable taking that time to learn and build the skills you’ll need, then it’s a worthy investment of your time if you have evidence that there’s indeed a market demand for your concept.

I’m a huge advocate of utilizing productive online business tools and skilled freelancers to help speed up and streamline the progress toward my business goals. Websites like LinkedIn ProFinder, Scripted, Dribbble, and Upwork have all become integral and affordable resources for me to scale my writing, design, and development abilities beyond what I can do simply on my own.

An alternative to hiring freelancers would be bringing in a partner, full-time employee, or part-time contractor who can complement your skills and abilities.

11. Seek feedback from customers and make adjustments to your offering

Your goal is to build a product or service that provides value to people. It does no good to build a product that nobody wants. One of the biggest luxuries you’re afforded by deciding to start a business and test the viability of your new company before leaving your day job is that you can take the time you need to get ample feedback.

This is a crucial step in evaluating any side business because you have such a limited amount of free time to work with, that you don’t want to waste it on something without serious growth potential. It’s important that you seek unbiased, outside feedback to make sure you’re building something that’s actually marketable.

To find your early feedback group, you want to target people that you know will give you only an honest opinion. Reach out to them personally. My go-to group consists of a handful of close entrepreneurial friends and a few mentors I regularly keep in touch with.

From here, you can start to widen your scope for feedback and begin incorporating Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, Reddit, ProductHunt, GrowthHackers, and even people at your local coffee shops who appear to be within your target market.

I’ve found the most effective way to frame asking for feedback is to simply ask for help. People love helping others, and if your request is kind & genuine, most people are willing to give a surprising amount of their time to help you in pursuing something you’re clearly passionate about. Make their opinion feel extremely valued and really reinforce just how much a few minutes of their time would mean to you.

12. Keep work and personal projects strictly separate

It may seem tempting to create a better version of the company you currently work at but unless your employer missed some major lessons along the way, your contract probably clearly stipulates that you’ve agreed not to do that.

Plus, that’s just bad practice and it will destroy a lot of relationships that could instead be very helpful for you one day. I go into way more detail in my post about how to avoid getting fired (and sued) while starting a side business.

Fully understand the agreements you signed when you started your job. If you’re under any non-compete clauses, assignment of invention clauses, or non-disclosure agreements, then it’s best to consult an attorney for personalized advice on this matter. I promise it’s worth the investment upfront.

Print out every contract you’ve signed and take it in to have it reviewed by an attorney. Fully disclose your proposed business concept and your attorney will give you their objective opinion on whether or not you’re violating any of your agreements. Ask for guidance on how to stay safe moving forward.

It may seem obvious but don’t work on your side business during company time. You’ll also need to refrain from using company resources on your project, no matter how tempting that may be. This includes not using your work computer, any online tools, software, subscriptions, notebooks, or seeking the assistance of other employees.

If a link is ever traced connecting your side business to anything directly related to your job, you expose yourself to potential legal action. Just don’t do it, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.

Parting words

Building your own business takes time. Even more so when doing it as a side hustle. Knowing the difficulties of achieving your goals and aspirations at the outset will mentally prepare you for the sacrifices ahead.

But always keep your eyes on the great rewards to come; being your own boss, doing what you love, having passive income to spend on things you enjoy, and the satisfaction of having built something of your own (with blood sweat, and tears) and seeing it flourish.

I wish you the utmost success, and the best of luck (it never hurts).

The post Starting a side business: 12 rules for success (2024) appeared first on WiseStamp.

You may think that working from home seems impossible. Working from home productivity can be affected, there are plenty of distractions, ranging from family or roommates, house tasks, and the proximity to your comfy bed. However, with a few tweaks in both your mindset and your surroundings, working from home can actually be highly rewarding.

Here, we’ll take a look at a few tried and true tips on how to work from home and stay productive. And, if your business is having trouble adapting to this new lifestyle check this article out, it may help! First, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of working from home.

Effectively working from home benefits

A lot of employees request to work from home if they have a sick child to take care of, for example. However, there are several other reasons why working from home can be advantageous.

1. Working from home time management

Working from home affords you the ability to keep a flexible schedule. If you have a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day or you need to pick up your kids from school, you don’t have to leave the office early. You can create a schedule that allows you to come back to your work when it’s convenient for you and finish it in your own time.

2. Productive home office

If you spend hours each day commuting to and from the office, working from home can be a welcome change from the daily traffic jams. The time you would have spent stuck in your car or on a bus can now be used for starting work earlier (or spending extra time in bed… we won’t judge).

3. Save Money

You’re saving time by not commuting, but you’re also saving money on things like gas and the bus fare. Most of all, since you have your kitchen at your fingertips, you don’t need to go out at lunchtime and spend frivolously on food when you can make a healthy and nutritious meal for a fraction of the cost.

4. Multitasking

Think of all the time you waste at the office doing things unrelated to your tasks. Chatting with coworkers, taking smoke breaks, scrolling through social media. You can still take those breaks while working from home, but make them more productive by doing things you need to do anyways, like walking the dog, putting a load of laundry in the washer, or organizing your room.

5. No Distractions

While some people thrive in social office settings, others may find it distracting. If you work with a big team, or if you’re friendly with your coworkers, you may find it challenging to get work done when it’s so tempting to chat with the person next to you. Working from home eliminates that struggle.

Hardship of being productive at home

Some people worry about staying focused and stimulated when working from home alone. Of course, there are a few other reasons why working from home can have a negative impact on your productivity.

1. Lack of Self-Discipline

Without the willpower to dedicate yourself to your work from the same amount of hours as you would in an office, working from home can seem impossible. Factor in all the distractions around you, like that new show that just came out on Netflix, and you’ve got a recipe for procrastination.

2. Not Enough Resources

In the office, you have two monitors, the strongest WiFi on the market, and a ton of coworkers who can help you out if you get stuck. At home, you have a small laptop, WiFi that drops connection when you stray too far from the router, and a cat that blankly stares at you while you work. 

3. No Socializing

Not everyone finds the office distracting. Some people enjoy socializing with their coworkers in order to refresh themselves in between heavy tasks. When working from home, it can be difficult to recreate that social aspect of the office.

4. Time-Sensitive Tasks

It can be frustrating to wait for an answer to an email for a simple question when at the office you can simply walk over to someone’s desk and have the matter sorted in minutes. Effectively working from home requires a lot more patience and diligence.

Working from home best practices

You don’t need to decide if the costs outweigh the benefits because there are a few ways you can ensure that your work from home experience remains productive, dynamic, and rewarding. 

How do I know? I’ve done it myself. A year ago, I shifted from working full-time in an office to working remotely as a freelancer, and I’ve collected some helpful tips to share with you that have helped me stay focused and on track with my work.  Working from home productivity tips and tricks!

1. Stick to Your Routine

You probably have a routine when it comes to waking up and getting ready to go to the office. When working from home, it’s easy to forget this routine, but it’s wise to keep it in place.

Treat your work from home like any other day of work that you’d go into the office for. Wake up at the same time, wash up as you normally would, get dressed, have breakfast, get the kids ready. Do whatever it is that you normally do each morning.

The same goes for your routine throughout the day. If you give yourself specific break times, or you’re used to having a cup of coffee after your lunch break, then maintain the same habits at home.

Of course, working from home has its perks. Personally, I don’t put on makeup or dress nicely if I know I’m not leaving my house for the day, but changing out from your PJs or lounge clothes will help your mind shift between ‘work time’ and ‘rest time.’ 

2. Reward Yourself with Breaks

No one can work straight through an eight-hour shift without taking regular breaks. You’d do this in the office by chatting with a co-worker or going to make a coffee, and it’s important to carry this over into your work-from-home routine.

A good way of doing this while maintaining productivity is by setting yourself small, attainable goals. For example, when I work, I like to take a break after every 500-700 words written. It gives me a chance to take a breather from my task, rest for a few minutes, and refocus. Additionally, while I’m working, I don’t check my phone, go on social media, or give in to any other distractions. By focusing on finishing a task in order to take a break, you’ll motivate yourself to really work.

Another method is the Pomodoro Technique. This technique is a time management system that forces you to work in 25-minute intervals. Each interval is called a Pomodoro, and after each one, you can take a 5-minute break. After four or five Pomodoros, you can take a longer break of about 15-20 minutes.

Whether you work better by focusing on finishing a task or by managing your time, setting yourself realistic and achievable goals throughout the day will help you finish your work on schedule without wasting a ton of time.

3. Designate a Workspace

You have a desk in the office, why not have a workspace at home? Working from your bed is never a good idea. It’s bad for your posture, and some scientists even say it can negatively impact your sleeping pattern since you’ll begin to associate your bed with a place for work.

This doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy a new desk if you don’t already have one at home. However, it is necessary to designate a certain area or place in your home as a place where you can work peacefully. Make sure that this place has everything you might need: supplies like pens and paper, proximity to an outlet, and a comfortable seating arrangement.

If you want a change of scenery, try working from a cafe or restaurant. Personally, I enjoy the stimulation of having a little more background noise when I work.

Furthermore, you might meet other people in the same situation who you can co-work with, giving you a more social atmosphere. I often find I’m more productive in these types of spaces since I eliminate the distractions of home and all that’s left to do is order a cup of tea, pop in my earphones, and focus on my work.

4. Use Your Tech Tools

Now is not the time to start slacking and leaving yourself post-it notes reminders. Your company uses productivity tools for a reason, and working from home is the perfect opportunity to take full advantage of them. Make sure you regularly check and update any apps or software you use in the office so you can stay aware of what your coworkers are working on and vice-versa.

If your company doesn’t already use these in the office, it’s time to start implementing them on your own. I like having a project management tool on hand, like Trello, where I can input all my tasks and organize them by what is done, in progress, or what is awaiting more information from a client.

There are other apps and tools you can use, like Google Drive for sharing documents with your coworkers, Zoom for videoconferencing into meetings, and Slack to stay in touch with your team. 

5. Stay Social and Communicative

Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean that you’re no longer part of a team. Sure, it’s important to communicate with your coworkers about work matters, however, it’s also necessary to stay social. You can do this by organizing a lunch date with a friend or hanging out with your family during your breaks.

Try and call your boss or colleague to ask a question instead of sending an email, and use this opportunity to take a break or chat with them briefly. As long as you’re not interrupting a meeting or important work, your colleagues may also enjoy a short break to speak with you.

Furthermore, never stop communicating with your team. No one will complain if you’re overly communicative. If you need to step away from your workspace to go to a doctor’s appointment, or if you simply want some input on a task, reach out to your coworkers or team members and let them know.

They will appreciate being involved and they’ll know when they can and can’t contact you if you’re off running an errand.

6. Don’t Forget to Unplug

Lastly and most importantly, don’t forget to switch off from work mode when it’s time. 

When you work from home, it’s easy to “just answer an email” or “finish up one last thing” before bed. If you don’t set yourself boundaries between ‘work time’ and ‘rest time,’ then you’ll find yourself at the beck and call of your work at all hours of the day. 

Just like you turn off your computer and leave the office for the day or weekend, do the same when you work from home. Log out of your work accounts, turn off your computer, and leave your work for regular work hours. Set yourself specific work hours every day or week, and commit to not working outside those hours.

When Done Right, Working From Home Can be More Productive

When I work from home or from a cafe, I find that I can accomplish the same amount of work that I would have done in an office in less time. 

Once you get into the routine of working from home and you learn how to distance yourself from tempting distractions, you might find yourself with more free time after completing your tasks sooner than you thought.

After you’ve settled into your new routine and perfected your at-home workspace, you might get so comfortable and used to the flexibility that you don’t even want to go back to the office! 

The post Work from home productivity: 6 tips to free up time appeared first on WiseStamp.

As digitally-based jobs continue to emerge and develop, so will the trend to work remotely. As you consider if and how you wish to work remotely, whether full-time or part-time, remember to weigh the pros and cons.

While many remote workers enjoy more freedom and don’t have stressful commutes, they can struggle with unique challenges like loneliness and how to know when to separate “home” from “work.” It’s important to keep all of this in mind as you explore your remote working opportunities this year and beyond.

Most popular remote jobs

When it comes to working remotely, there are a wide variety of jobs out there that can be carried out with absolutely no requirement of an office. We cover a few of the most common remote job positions down below.

1. Online Marketing

Whether you are working for yourself, or on behalf of an organization, online marketing can be a very easy job to do from home. Why? With access to a good quality laptop, whether it’s performing lead generation, social media marketing, or email marketing, you have everything you need to carry out the job. If you need to contact your client or work colleagues, you can simply Skype them to get in touch.

2. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is another popular remote job that many people like to do. This is again an easy job to do considering you have a constant workflow and a good laptop, you can work from wherever you please. Many freelancers start out working remotely and then may decide to apply to a larger organization in the future.

3. Website Designing

If you are more creative and enjoy designing, then perhaps web design is your thing. In fact, many people choose to work as freelance web designers as it is just a lot simpler to work from home when all you require is good software and a laptop.

The more expert web designers, who are earning big bucks, may eventually decide to rent an office space to work from. However, if you are comfortable working remotely, whether at home or any other location, then web designing is a job that allows you the freedom to do so.

4. Social Media Management

The 4^th and final job which is popular to do remotely is social media management. Again, this is a position that mainly requires someone to manage online social profiles and pages, and for this reason, it can be done remotely with no office required.

Social media management can be quite rewarding, and more and more organizations are outsourcing their social media managers as they can often be a much cheaper alternative than having a full-time employee in-house working on social media.

Is Working Remote the Right Option for Me?

Working remotely can be the perfect ideal for some people, and the worst to others. It does depend on your lifestyle, and what you want out of your job.

If you have built a career that you are passionate about and this happens to be remote, then you should continue with this career path if it works for you. If, however, you feel you miss the social aspects of working in an organization itself, then perhaps a non-remote position will be the best fit for you.

It is important to be content with your job, and if you feel you want to change your career and working style, then the key is to do it with confidence. Perhaps you like aspects of both remote and nonremote working? Then in this case try to discover a job position that allows a bit of both!

Although there may be some cons in remote working, it is almost considered a positive thing for most organizations worldwide and continues to be popular looking towards the future world of work.

Remote working – Pros and Cons

Pros

Let’s begin with the advantages.

1. Flexibility in work hours

One of the main pros of working remotely is the extra flexibility it provides. This means you can perhaps take your children to school and look after them better without having to rely on childcare, which for some parents is pretty expensive.

Some people work a lot more efficiently when in charge of their own schedule, and this can help them to be more productive at the same time. People have started quitting positions due to lack of flexibility and remote work with the number increasing from 17 percent in 2014 to 32 percent in 2017.

2. Saves money and commute time

When you work from home, this removes the need to commute, which can often take up quite a chunk of your monthly wage anyway. When it comes to eating lunch, you can also save by making it and eating at home rather than always having to buy something out, which when hunger strikes, can force you to make costlier decisions!

Another area you will save money is with childcare, if you are able to handle working with your kids at home, then this could also save you a lot.

3. Go at your own pace (less of that rat race)

Many people who work remotely can choose exactly when and how they work on projects, so long as they get them completed in time for the target deadline. Working remotely you are also free to take breaks when you require them and follow through on work without being disturbed by a coworker.

Self-discipline is crucial when working remotely, and if you can keep up, you can be a lot more effective than at the office.

4. Fewer absences that reduce your monthly pay

Sometimes when we fall ill with a cold or sore throat, we wake up and decide to give the commute a miss and call in sick out of fear of it making us worse.

Being at home, however, you will have more time to look after yourself to get better, minimizing contact with others and getting on with some work at the same time. This allows you to get better quicker, and studies show that remote workers have fewer absences than on-site employees.

Cons

With so many good points there must also be some bad ones, and we will try to cover them all below.

1. Hard to lay down a steady routine

When at work on-site, there is much more sense of routine. You have to wake up at a certain time, check in at a certain time, and make sure you are finished by a certain hour.

When working at home, however, the routine might be totally in your hands. Again this depends on the type of remote work as some employers may still require constant check-ins, regular Skype meetings, and deadlines.

If you are completely freelance, however, you will be in charge of your individual schedule. For some, it may be hard to keep motivated, and for others, it might be difficult to work effectively without a backbone of routine to fall back on.

2. No of workplace can mean no social life

One of the main issues that working remotely brings is the lack of integration with other colleagues. Of course, you may be keeping up and interacting virtually, but it simply isn’t the same as being there in person, is it?

Being remote you will miss out on lunchtime gossip, and jokes shared between co-workers which help you to make stronger bonds and friendships. Remote workers can end up feeling a little isolated at times, and this is why a lot of people prefer not to work remotely at all.

There are those however who are less interested in the social side of work and more in the actual work itself, so for these individuals, this poses no threat, but for the major part, it is a major red flag.

3. Difficult to Attain Work/Life Balance

You may think that when working remotely, you will have more time to devote to your personal life. However, with no clear boundaries between work and home, you may sometimes mix them, making it difficult to switch off at times.

Often when you leave the office your work stays there, whereas, at home, it is always present. This means clear boundaries should be set in order not to think about work too much and keep the balance equal.

4. Remote work distractions can kill your productivity

Distractions can also become a bit of a problem when at home, and so must be controlled. If you have pets or children they may demand your attention for a while, and this can break you during the flow of working. You can also freely browse social media, watch TV or take long breaks if you wish which can sometimes take you away from your work and kill your productivity completely.

Popular remote working trends to watch for

The most popular jobs for remote workers are ones that rely heavily on digital skills. That can mean anything from social media management to coding, web design to graphic arts. Employers are raising their expectations when it comes to their demands for tech-savvy remote workers. Employer expectations of digital skills are shifting from basic to advance

The demand for technology-savvy professionals now extends well beyond the software development space. According to a survey by Linkedin, jobs that demand tech skills like data storage, app development, and human-computer interaction are sharply on the rise.

So if you want to compete for a remote-working position, make sure your tech skills are up to snuff.

Expect to have some office time

There are many benefits of working remotely. But, like with anything, there are also some drawbacks. One of the largest reported problems amongst remote workers is feeling lonely and disconnected from their co-workers. To combat this, employers are being mindful to require in-office days from remote workers.

Whether it be a weekly meeting or bi-weekly team lunch, employers are finding ways to incorporate remote workers into the office environment. And it’s working! Remote workers who visit their office at least once a week are happier than their counterparts who work entirely from home. It’s all about finding the right balance between the home and the office.

Embrace the latest communication technology

Thanks to the rise of global teams and remote workers, many technologies and tools have emerged to help companies keep communication flowing between different time zones, languages, and cultures. Emailing between remote teams is an obvious way to communicate but can get disorganized and doesn’t have the advantage of being in real-time.

In response, real-time team chat tools like Slack and Hangouts (by Google) are becoming more and more popular, and there are even chat solutions for small businesses. Then there are tools to help everyone speak the same language, literally.

Tools like Grammarly ensure that remote workers, no matter what their native language, will always use proper grammar and spelling. When it comes to workflow and task management, shared online workspaces like Trello and Monday will also rise in popularity.

As for “face time,” expect to see more technologies roll out for virtual video conferencing. Eventually, the tech will become sophisticated enough that you’ll feel like you’re in the same room with your manager sitting in Bali.

Get ready for Gen Z competition

Millennials might dominate the workforce in 2019, but by 2020, they’ll have some competition. Next year, Gen Z will make up nearly 36 percent of the global workforce, and they have advantages that their Millennial counterparts don’t.

For starters, members of Gen Z are the true digital natives; they grew up with iPads in their hands as toddlers and smartphones by grade school. And while 68 percent of millennials prefer companies that allow them to work from home, Gen Z is even likelier to seek out remote work and excel at it.

Have an eye out for these jobs

Not all industries, roles, or specialties are suited for the work-from-home lifestyle. But positions are either adapting to the remote structure or emerging because of it.

If you are gunning for a position that will indefinitely allow you to not only work remotely but also to grow your career remotely and earn significant income, then you’ll be wise to watch these opportunities:

• Marketing Manager
• IT manager
• UX/UI designer or researcher
• Software Developer
• Customer success engineer

4 Secrets for Reaching Optimal Remote Work Productivity

When you first begin working remotely, you feel like the luckiest person alive. You get to work wherever and whenever you want, all without a boss looking over your shoulder. You bask in your independence and make sure that your work-life looks nothing like it did when you were traditionally employed.

You work all night and sleep all day; you always say yes when your friends invite you out for drinks at 10 pm on a Tuesday (It’s cool. You can sleep in and work later, right?); and you work from anywhere and everywhere you can.

But it doesn’t take long before you realize all that freedom has the potential to be a hindrance to your best performance. Working remotely is great, but you also have to be productive during your work time. If you’re not, you might not have that great remote position for much longer.

Fortunately, there are a few secrets you can use to make your remote work experience both more productive and more enjoyable.

1. Track your time

Have you ever looked back on your week, your day, or even your morning and asked yourself, “Where did the time go?” Turns out this is no mystery of the universe.

You don’t have to wonder. All you need to do is track your time. I use a free online time tracker tool called Toggl, which makes my work life so much more productive. It might be hard to believe, but you won’t have to change any other aspect of your work time to see a real productivity improvement.

 Simply turn Toggl on when you’re working and turn it off when you’re not. Handy charts in the app show how long you worked compared with other days. Each Monday, you get an email with your Toggl report that depicts how many hours you worked the seven days before.

In just a few weeks, you will notice that you’re a lot more productive without even trying to be. All you did was start to become aware of how you’re spending your time.

2. Get a work accountability buddy

Part of the reason it’s easy to get off track when you are working remotely is that much of the time, you are doing it by yourself. When you work alone, there’s no one around to hide Facebook or Gchat from and no one to tell you what to do.

To remedy this, consider getting a work accountability buddy. This can be a friend, fellow remote worker, or coworker with whom you pair up to keep each other on task. You don’t need to physically be in the same location with your buddy to hold one another accountable.

Here are a couple of ideas you can try with your accountability buddy:

I. Have a daily or weekly “check-in” with your buddy

Exchange Toggl reports, share the things that steered you off track that week, and brainstorm ways you can improve for the next week. You can even make it a competition to see who wasted the least amount of time on certain days or worked the most hours.

II. Have a designated “check-in” time

Having a set time to work, even if it’s a few hours a day or a couple of days a week, can do wonders for productivity. When you’re working a traditional job, you have to show up at 9 am (or else!).

But when you’re a remote worker, it’s hard to be anywhere at a specific time unless someone is waiting for you to show up

Enter your work buddy. Set a time when you both have to “check-in” online. The method isn’t important; it could be via Skype, Gchat, email, or whatever you prefer. The important part is that when you do check-in you’re really sitting down to work.

Having an accountability buddy is not just great for productivity, but it’s fun. You might not realize just how much you’ve missed having others around when you’re working – to bounce ideas off of, to chat with on a (short) break, or just so you aren’t alone all the time.

3. Pay attention to what works for you and implement it into your routine

Some people say that you need to maintain a routine, while others say to break up your routine. Some say to work during the day, whereas others swear by working through the night. And while some do well at a coworking space, others do best when they are at home or in a coffee shop.

The truth is, there is no secret recipe to working remotely. Success comes from paying attention to what works for you and integrating that into your routine. Do you work best in the morning? Then set a goal to be up at least 4 mornings per week to ensure you’re using that time to work.

Do you work best from a coffee shop? If the ambient atmosphere and free-flowing caffeine help you focus, then set up camp at your local coffee shop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If you can manage to work there every day, that’s even better!

4. Reward yourself

For some, it’s starting work that’s the problem. But for others, remote work means you are always in “work mode.” While working all the time may sound pretty productive, it’s usually not. Take into consideration that always being “on” puts pressure on your mental focus and your health.

That said, you’ve got a productivity problem on your hands. The first thing you need to do is set some goals that are easily measurable. Why? So that you can stop working when you reach them. Otherwise, how will you know when it’s time to quit?

Ideas to get you started:

• Create a list of the “big things” you want to get done each day. There should be no more than 2-3 things on this list. When those things are done, you’re done working for that day.
• Put in a certain number of hours each day. This only works if you make sure you are productive during that time.
• Accomplish a certain number of items that need to get done each day.

When you’ve met your goal, it’s time to quit for the day. No excuses! Put away the laptop, turn off email notifications on your phone, and relax like it’s your job.

You can even indulge in a weekly or daily treat as a reward for a job well done. This could be a piece of fancy chocolate, 30 minutes of mindless YouTube consumption, a trip to Starbucks, or a weekly standing appointment at the spa.

Working remotely doesn’t mean the end of productivity, and productive remote work doesn’t have to mean the end of fun. Using these tips, you can be sure that your remote work not only gets the job done but ensures your work life is fulfilling and enjoyable as well. What productivity tips do you use to keep yourself on track?  

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