I’m down for the count…a cliched term that describes my cur­rent situation—flat on my back nurs­ing a seri­ous mus­cle strain. Yes­ter­day when the pain became tol­er­a­ble and my grow­ing work­load intol­er­a­ble, a friend made me laugh with her casual com­ment about how unlikely it is that she would be allowed to work lying down in her office, even though the com­pany she works for is laid-back about hours and workspace.

Busi­ness hap­pens 24/7. Whether you have a home busi­ness or work in a more tra­di­tional job, it is rare to get every­thing expected of you done dur­ing a 9 to 5 sched­ule. Even if you are firm about hav­ing spe­cific pub­lic ‘office hours’, there is always work to be done out­side these hours.

What kinds of tasks do you find are rel­e­gated to your ‘after hours’ time? Phone calls? Email? Scop­ing out new clients? Doing com­pet­i­tive research? Respond­ing to sales inquiries or cus­tomer ser­vice requests? Yes, likely these and more.

We do busi­ness in a 24/7 global envi­ron­ment. This is espe­cially true for a home busi­ness; infor­ma­tion is king and com­mu­ni­ca­tion is the red car­pet down which the king walks. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing via emails, instant mes­sages, Twit­ter, Face­book, pro­fes­sional forums, and other social media tools must hap­pen at times that are con­ve­nient for your cus­tomers, not for you. I seem to be full of clichés today, but beyond doubt, time is money—your money.

A 9 to 5 work day seems lux­u­ri­ous to me. Work­ing from a home office makes it easy to fall into the habit of being avail­able 24 hours a day. And I am truly guilty of this. Admit it. How many of you have been up at 4 AM tweet­ing about your home busi­ness ser­vices or products?

You know and I know that the real­ity and the ideal are not always even close. So, how do you tap into your mem­o­ries of work­ing a 9 to 5 job and bring your home office work hours under control?

Try spread­ing things out and tak­ing breaks. Your busi­ness will not crash and burn if you don’t respond to every email within five min­utes. If you have the option, del­e­gate some of this type of work to oth­ers. Don’t miss the signs of when it’s time to hire a vir­tual assis­tant. Even 2 hours a week can be an amaz­ing boon.

Did I men­tion take breaks? I mean more than 10 minute breaks. I’m talk­ing about tak­ing real time off—days or even weeks. An over­worked you is a mis­er­able you. And if you over­work to the point of sick­ness, who fills in to keep up respon­sive­ness and pro­duc­tiv­ity? (Hint: typ­ing on a lap­top rest­ing on your tummy while lay­ing flat on your back in bed it NOT espe­cially effi­cient, pro­duc­tive, or fun.)

Think­ing about your busi­ness out­side of work hours is going to hap­pen no mat­ter what. You are involved in more than your home busi­ness and your best ideas are going to spark from the blend of what’s hap­pen­ing out­side of the office and what you are doing inside.

Get­ting out­side of your busi­ness head is good. Suc­cess­ful peo­ple do not work for 8-hours and call it quits. Suc­cess­ful peo­ple find a bal­ance and yet—they’re always think­ing and working.

What kind of work hours do you keep?  Share your opin­ion and expe­ri­ence in the comments below!

Do you find stay­ing on track and focused a chal­lenge? Then Find Your Focus audio sem­i­nar might help. If you would like the 2Chicks to focus our atten­tion on your home busi­ness life, con­tact the 2Chicks and ask us about the Co-sult Coop. We can help!

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