Make Money Working From Home Online
The average employee spends 200 hours, or nearly two working weeks, commuting to and from the office. The same time taken by astrophotographer Stephane Guisard to take a series of 1,220 individual images depicting our galaxy or 73 hours less than the time taken by 35-year-old Aron Ralston to free himself from a narrow slot in the Bluejohn Canyon, Utah. Benjamin Franklin famously said that time is money, and with the boom in home-working opportunities the time spent frenetically squeezing ourselves into rush hour trains can readily be converted into cash by taking up one of many telecommuting positions.
From carrying out market research surveys online to manning a virtual office, working from home can provide and ongoing source of income from settings as varied as a makeshift office in your living room to a beach front in Hawaii. An internet connection and a laptop or tablet are all that are needed to dust off the shackles of office life for good.
Why people work from home
Working from home is normally seen as the preserve of housewives or workers that may be housebound through illness or disability but an increasing number of employees are choosing to work remotely for their complete working week or part of it. According to the Office of National Statistics in 2010 there were 1.3m home workers and 3.7m employees who sometimes work from home or use home as a base. Teleworking or e-working is offered by a number of companies and Directgov offers an interactive tool which tells you if your employer has a legal duty to consider your request for flexible working.
The advantages of becoming a homeworker are numerous and are normally centred on creating a better work-life balance:
1. Work for companies in remote locations without relocating: Multinational companies have been outsourcing their work to other countries for decades and now employees can bid for roles outside of their geographical remit. Whether it's offering English lessons to students in Asia via Skype or writing articles for publications worldwide.
2. Banish the 9 to 5: Mothers who want to fit their working day around the school run or workers who have a other job commitments can negotiate one or more telecommuting roles into their own timetables, including substituting weekdays for weekends or working anti-social hours. In his best-selling book The Four Hour Work Week Timothy Ferris argues that this is all the time needed to generate a healthy income as you let passive income streams do all the hard work for you.
3. Pursue your passion: If you've ever dreamt of writing a novel or starting your own business but were held back by fears of mounting bills and enduring yet another staycation, home-working could offer you the chance to earn money while simultaneously pursuing your dream career.
4. Become a portfolio worker: Are you a tecchie who secretly yearns to be an oil painter or an office junior with ambitions to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? Tele-worker positions help you make a smooth transition into portfolio working, where a worker holds multiple jobs or contracts in multiple fields with multiple companies, by allowing you to keep your current position and undertake other roles from home.
5. Reap tax benefits: Some employees who are working from home and self-employed may benefit from tax credits, as well the having the ability to claim expenses and allowances varying from equipment to petrol mileage.
Although research has indicated that home-working can actually be more productive, daily distractions such as the postman, the lure of daytime TV and having the freedom to take unlimited coffee breaks away from the watchful eyes of a hovering boss means that teleworking as a professional choice has to be honed down to a fine skill.
Here are some handy tips that will ensure that working from home has all the kudos of a day in the office:
Establish a routine:
Breakfast at 7, desk at 9am and lunch at 1 whatever timetable works for you make sure you put it in place daily to to keep yourself from putting your alarm onto snooze and trying to squeeze a days work into a couple of hours.
Dress the part:
You may be working from home, but it's best to dress as if you were heading into the office. Putting on an smart-casual outfit will put you in the frame of mind for work and ensure that you're ready to take impromptu video conference calls.
Carve out an office space:
Whether it's a corner in your spare bedroom or a swish shed conversion make sure you designate a working area in your home and do your best to keep it organised and well-equipped.
A stroll to a local café for lunch or even hauling your laptop outside to the garden for a spot of fresh air can all help to break up the monotony of working from home.
Manage your time effectively:
Use tools such as Outlook Task Manager and or Google Calendar to organise your days into manageable chunks and to flag important meetings.
Keep up a professional presence:
Get a Skype phone number to divert business calls to your own mobile, put a professional tag at the end of emails and set up your own simple website/business card to advertise your services.
Stay healthy:
Just because you're working from home don't think that regular eye breaks and ergonomic furniture don't apply. Contact your employment union for advice.
Stay connected:
Remote working can leave you feeling as if you are out of the professional and social loop. Join a forum for home workers or organisations such as The Teleworking Association to meet other workers and to network.
Manage your money:
When you work from home it may mean that instead of a fixed monthly salary, payment trickles in throughout the month/year. Budget carefully so that your income matches your expenditure with tools such as the budget planner at moneysavingexpert.com and keep a record of your outgoings on a database spreadsheet.
Don't procrastinate:
Deciding on the background colour for a website or spending an inordinate amount of time wording an email, whatever decision you need to make do it in a reasonable time-frame. If you find yourself drifting of task, switch to doing some office admin or make a few telephone calls to take your mind off things.
