Working from home: do you have strict business hours?

[oregano]

To all of you who work from home in various types of business: do you work set hours, as if you were in a corporate office setting, or do you find yourself working "whenever"? In other words, are you able to keep strict boundaries between work and home activities, even though they take place at the same address?

How important do you think it is to separate work and personal/family activities at home - and does this apply even if you don't have kids, or you live alone?

If you do work irregular hours from home, is this by choice or because you don't have the discipline to put in a regular 9 to 5 (or whatever) day and then sign off until the next day?

[LindaKay]

I don't. I have tried to do this, but I find that I'm a little less productive that way. I have to work when there is work available for me to do, and that might be early in the morning or late at night. I also usually have errands to run and chores to do. I can vacuum during the daytime and work at night, but I probably shouldn't be running the vacuum at night so that I can wake the whole house up. I wouldn't say that it's because I don't have enough discipline; I think it's more because I'm able to get a lot more done throughout the day by switching back and forth from working to doing other things.

[delusional]

This is the beauty from working from home. You get to choose your own hours. If you are not feeling that well in the morning, you just stay in bed a little longer and work later in the evening. Need to go to the store? No problem, take a break from work and do whatever you want.
You are still in a normal living schedule so I think you still work from the morning till noon, eat, work again and have some kind of relaxation in the evening.

[Rainman]

It all depends on your goals. Working from home comes in two forms. Either you're working for yourself [as a business owner, online marketer, etc] or you're working for a client [who expects you to deliver whatever it is you're working on, on time]. In either case, to get the most out of what you're doing, you have to set aside time for you to work. That would mean working 6-8 hours a day. For me however, I tend to go to extremes. I can work all day or do nothing except read.

[cpefley]

I agree. If you have clients, you would probably need set business hours so that you can be available when they need you. However, if you are working for yourself, you might just be trying to fit in work whenever you can (like me, for example). Everyone has a different style that works for them, so there is no right or wrong way to work from home.

[crimsonghost747]

Definitely the *whenever* version, it's one of the reasons that I work from home at the moment.

[eaglesgift]

I have set hours because I find it much easier. At first, I resisted working at set times because I thought that one of the benefits of working from home was that you got to choose your own hours. However, after a year or so, I began to realise that, for me at least, not having set working hours was causing more problems than the supposed freedom was worth. The main problem with working any hours you fancy is that you are never off the clock so to speak. It is difficult to switch off and relax when you have outstanding work and you do not work set hours as you always feel that you should be working. The only way I was able to deal with this effectively was to start working regular work hours. The loss of flexibility is more than compensated for by the fact that I am now able to relax completely after I have finished work for the day.

Another problem that I encountered was a lack of self discipline. If I allowed myself to work whenever I wanted, sometimes I would procrastinate and put off doing things until the last minute. This meant that I often had to rush work and on some occasions was unable to meet deadlines and had to let my clients down.

[JohnSword]

Personally, I keep loosely to a 9 to 5 schedule. I feel that having a time frame helps to keep me focused and motivated. I find that I get easily distracted if I just work as and when I feel like it. Also having working hours allows me to set aside the rest of the day for personal time, such as working out and taking classes.

[jfab]

I do keep my business hours or working hours to myself. Although it 's a struggle because it's hard not to procrastinate. But once you get the hang of time management, you're good with your work flow. You have to be diligently focus though.

[fredkawig]

I work at home through online sites and sometimes reselling items such as electronic gadgets and computers. We have a family business which brings in a small amount of dough specially when tourists are all over our city. I spend little time in my businesses since I'm still going to school and about to enter law school. Maybe in the future I can focus more on my business after I have finished my studies.