By Lisa Michaels

Launching a business from home is a very smart idea, and it is becoming increasingly common. When you start a home-based business, you drastically reduce overhead expenses. You also save time by eliminating a commute from your daily schedule. These benefits can put you at a strategic advantage over the competition in some cases.

However, starting and running your business at home is not without challenges. To enjoy the best possible experience while maximizing the rewards of running a home-based business, follow these important tips.

Define your goals

It is virtually impossible to achieve business goals if you are not certain what they specifically are. While you need to have a larger goal that may take months or years to obtain, you also need to set smaller focused or specific goals for the immediate future.

Goals may include reaching a specific revenue figure or personal yearly income amount, establishing more industry connections through networking, achieving certain marketing results and more. These smaller goals may be stepping stones that will help you to make steady progress toward your larger goal.

Set up a dedicated office space

Regardless of the size of your current home, you need to have a dedicated space to work each day. Some people are fortunate enough to have an entire room they can dedicate to a home office, but this is not always possible.

If space is limited, you can always place a small work desk in a corner of your bedroom. This desk should only be used for your work-related activities and not for personal uses by you and your family members.

Ideally, this space will be in a remote area of the home away from the sounds of the TV and daily family life. Instruct your loved ones to avoid distracting you when you are working.

Stay organized

Regardless of how private your home office is, you need to stay organized if you want to enjoy the best results when working from home. A neat and tidy work area with an organized desk can help you to stay on track. All aspects of your space should be organized, so think about this when buying furniture for your home office.

Make sure you have enough storage space for all your papers, tools and other items. Store all documents in folders and clean your workspace at the end of each day. This way, when you start working the next day, you can get right down to business.

When some people work from home, they are lured away from work activities by various distractions, such as home chores or friends stopping by. For other people, it is easy to work an excessive number of hours from home. They may be inclined to start working first thing when they get up and to continue to work throughout the day and into the evening hours.

It’s all too easy to think you’ll spend a few minutes house cleaning only to find that an hour has passed and you still have a dust rag in your hand. Avoid the distraction posed by a messy house by getting the best house cleaning service available. This will eliminate feeling that you have to juggle your work and house cleaning.

Managing your time is critical, and a smart way to begin is by setting regular work hours each day and creating a schedule of to-do items you want to tackle. You need to actively develop a way to manage your time if you want to be as productive as possible each day.

If you’re struggling with managing your time effectively, you can get help from time management apps. Tools like Toggl, RescueTime or Time Doctor can help you see how and where you spend your time so you can structure your day more efficiently.

Prevent burnout

Because of the incredible amount of time, energy and drive required to launch a successful startup from home, you can easily burn out. To prevent this from happening, you simply need to carve out time in your schedule each day for yourself and for your loved ones.

Focusing on your overall health and well-being is important as well. Consider taking short breaks to stretch or to walk around the block from time to time. Get more extensive exercise regularly with a jog or a trip to the gym.

Your diet should be as healthy as possible, and you should find ways to mitigate stress, such as through exercise, yoga or meditation. When you focus on total body health regularly, you may be more energized to exert greater emphasis on your business’s growth and development.

Final thoughts

As beneficial as it can be to launch a home-based business, some challenges and pitfalls related to working at home can potentially have devastating results. Understanding these challenges is the first step. Then, you need to create an effective plan to reduce their severity or even to prevent them altogether.

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Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a striving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in the business world. Connect with her on Twitter @LisaBMichaels.