The Joy of Working from Home: Making a Life While Making a Living

Both pragmatic and inspiring, The Joy of Working from Home shows the current or prospective home-office worker how to set up an efficient home office and provides the support for making what for many will be a major life change. Combining detailed, useful information with encouraging advice and anecdotes, the book gives numerous positive examples of individuals who have successfully made the transition. The author-himself a home-worker for many years-provides realistic methods for striking a healthy balance between business and personal life. Addressing the vital questions of lifestyle, and the difficult trade-offs between work and personal priorities, The Joy of Working from Home offers guidelines for wisely allocating every home worker's most valuable resource: time. It shows: o how to organize both work and workspace efficiently; o the inherent advantages of using a home-based office to achieve practical and personal rewards; o techniques for avoiding the stress and distress of letting the demands of work and family intermingle. Drawing on the experiences of many home-based workers, this book helps solve the problems of self-discipline, financial insecurity, isolation, and interruptions. It also offers valuable advice on dealing with the vulnerabilities that inevitably come with self-employment-creating a professional image, maintaining a positive attitude, nurturing the capacity to persist against obstacles, and developing the flexibility to deal with a variety of clients or customers. The practical aspects of running a business out of a home office are also addressed. The Joy of Working from Home provides useful strategies for creating a business plan, low-cost marketing techniques, tips for networking in the community, and ways to keep expenses down. There is down-to-earth advice for avoiding the pitfalls of zoning and tax requirements, information on purchasing office equipment and supplies, and guidelines for contracting outside services. A resource section creates access to important publications, home-based business associations, government agencies, and database information for effective business and professional marketing. This book will appeal to a broad spectrum of current and prospective home office candidates, including the newly self-employed professional, the budding entrepreneur, those weary of the corporate work environment or long commutes, and those determined to restore the balance between their personal and professional lives.