5 Pitfalls To Avoid When Working From Home

You don’t need a dedicated office to be a successful real estate investor. There are thousands of investors who have made the shift and work from home every day. Many of these people enjoy the freedom and flexibility of creating their own schedule and working whenever the business calls. However, not everybody is cut out to work from home. It takes a special kind of dedication and focus to work without supervision. Even the most motivated person runs into trouble every now and then without someone telling them what to do and how to do it. If you do not have the right mindset and personality you will struggle maximizing your potential. Working from home is how business will be done in the future and doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon. Here are five major pitfalls to avoid when working from home.

• Education. There are pros and cons with almost everything in business. If you talk to ten people who work from home five will rave about it and the other five will tell you why a corporate work environment is most productive. The bottom line is that only you can make that determination. The first pitfall you need to avoid when working from home is with where you get your education from and how you learn the business. The best education always comes from personal experience. In a corporate culture you can interact with others who you can bounce ideas off and simply talk shop. When working from home your education can be from people who comment blog posts or an investing group on social media. This doesn’t mean the information is bad, but it may not be pertinent to you and your situation. If you work from home, you need to make it a point to constantly stay on top of your market and the real estate business in general.
• No structure. One of the biggest mistakes investors make when working from home is that they don’t treat it like a business. While you may not agree with everything about the corporate work culture, there are a few things you can take from it. Regardless of where you work you need structure to succeed. This structure can adapt to you and your personality, but you need something in place. Start with where you work in your house. Do you have a dedicated office where you know where everything is? If you don’t can you quickly access a form or a file in a moments notice if need be? Do you have a work schedule that you follow to maximize efficiency? It is easy to sleep in a few extra minutes in the winter or to take a little longer for lunch when there is nobody watching. Most people like the freedom that working from home affords but it is important to remember that you still need structure to be successful.
• Distractions. There are distractions regardless of where you work. If you work in an office, you can walk down to another office in the building and strike up a conversation that takes you in in many directions. When you work from home you have the TV, phone, refrigerator and even the couch to deal with. Most investors are self-motivated and need the income they produce to support themselves or their family. However, they are still human and fight temptation every now and then. When working from home it is a good idea to put your phone away for a few hours during the day. There is currently no greater source of distraction than your phone. Between constant emails, texts and the allure of social media your can be on your phone for hours throughout the day. You can also get caught up on something as simple as the view from your back deck or something you see on TV. Distractions are everywhere, it is up to you to control them.
• Complacency. There is a certain motivation with getting up, getting dressed and driving to an office. Even if you are alone in the office you are more inclined to get things done than if you were at your kitchen table. It is easy some days when you don’t feel like working to stretch your morning cup of coffee an extra twenty minutes. Instead of working right after lunch you will procrastinate a while longer until you absolutely need to get going. Alone, this may not seem like much but when added together you can easily waste a few hours every day. All it takes is one missed phone call or a late response on an email to miss out on a deal. When you work from home you need to be quicker and sharper than your competition.
• Networking. For as many people that want to get out of their house and network many are just as comfortable staying in. As we mentioned, if nobody is telling you where you should be it is easy only doing the things you want to. Networking is one of the necessary evils of the business. Sitting around at a dry meeting for an hour or two may not be your idea of fun but it can a great source of contacts. These contacts are the building blocks of your business and help form strong relationships. The minute you let your networking slip your business will start to suffer.

Working from home is the wave of the future. Not having a boss or paying rent is great but you need to avoid these five pitfalls.