Oh, the joys of working at home. What is better than the 60 second commute to your home office, but have you taken time to consider the drawbacks. While a home office may be very convenient, they can be highly inefficient. There is no better place to get distracted then at home.

At home you have children, laundry that needs to be done, the television, pets, and a home phone that likes to ring. All of these distractions are time sucks. They simply suck away valuable time. If they are taking away time, then it’s safe to assume that they are taking away profits from your business, and I don’t think that losing money was what you had in mind when choosing to work at home. Unless you have rock solid discipline, it’s easy for your work day to turn into a day filled with endless errands which means little to no business work gets done.

If you choose to work from home, you must keep yourself in a routine in order to get the best results. Set your alarm for a set time each day, go workout, get dressed, get the kids ready and off to school (if you have them), and then get to work.

If you cannot maintain the day-to-day disciplines of running a business, then you must seek an outside office for the sake of staying in business. The thought of having to spend additional money alone may help you stay disciplined. If you can’t make it work at home, then you will be forced to cut into your profits and spend money on leasing an outside office which also comes with added utilities (internet, electric, phone, water) that will be needed at the business location. And if you can’s make a home office work and you can’t afford an outside office, the it’s back to the J-O-B and nobody wants that.