There are certain problems with working from home, most people who do work form home already know these problems and have hopefully managed to work their around them, but for those who are about to embark on a career of working from home here are some answers for the inevitable questions.

Working hours – Just because you are at home and at work at the same time it is far too easy for the two to overlap, and this can cause some serious problems both with work life and home life. So quite simply you will need to keep work hours, this does not have to be in one big chunk you can spread the hours over the day, this is helpful if you work with people from different time zones etc.

Using the phone – From time to time you may need to use the phone, this may be to talk to customers or the people that you work for. It is absolutely essential that you are able to speak to whoever it is without any background “Home” noises, like the TV, pets and children, for a customer there is nothing worse than having to keep repeating yourself because there is a child in the background calling out “Mummy” it is the fastest way to lose business.

Workspace – If you have a desk or other workspace, this must be off limits to everyone, but yourself this sounds like being selfish, but this is work, your family and friends could walk into your workplace and hang around putting stuff on your desk or bench, so they should not do this at your home desk or bench,

Deliveries – Would you need to accept deliveries on behalf of your business? If so you need to make provision for this, firstly you need to make sure that you can hear the delivery people, even if it is the post, you need to be able to leave your work space sort out the delivery and still keep and eye on the phones and emails etc.

Co-workers – If you get to the stage where you are employing people, it is a good idea to get a keypad entry system, there are loads to choose from and many styles etc, this will allow your employees to gain entry to the workplace and not the home is that sort of set up is viable, and this will also save you the bother of handing out keys etc.

These points are just common sense but will save you headaches if you put your plans into action before the problems arise, it is always better to think ahead, it is what makes a businessperson.

Source  [Life Hack]