Strategy and application equal success when working from home

Wouldn’t you love a job where you can be your own boss, choose your own hours, work in a field where you can apply your own talents and interests, do as much or as little as you need to, and have no one to answer to but yourself?

Actually, many already have that job. According to a Gallup poll published in the New York Times, 43% of employed Americans spend at least part of their time out of the office working remotely, but a growing number are going a step further and have cut out the middleman entirely, implementing strategies to eke out a living for themselves, with no outside employer involved.

let the world come to you

The irruption of the Internet as an instrument of mass communication is what has made it possible to a great extent. Many are of the opinion that going out into the big world to earn a living is no longer a necessity when the world has been brought into our living room. As long as we have a product or service to sell and someone else wants to buy it, the potential is there.

At the basic end of the scale, the easiest way to make money from home is by selling items through outlets like Etsy and eBay. Most use them as a means simply to earn a few bucks by getting rid of their unwanted surplus items, but inevitably, such buying and selling platforms soon generated potential for continued business. Others earn a generally modest but still regular income by completing online surveys.

For those with a more creative bent, one area of ​​opportunity that has expanded exponentially in recent years is desktop publishing. Even those who fancy themselves potential authors could be forgiven for avoiding traditional publishers, considering that accepting a manuscript seems to be the exception to the rule (Gone with the Wind, Watership Down, and Carrie were rejected several times by publishers). With programs like Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing, anyone who can follow a few relatively simple formatting instructions can now publish a book and display it on its own dedicated author page, sometimes in a matter of hours.

Work done at home is still work

However, what must be understood is that working from home is not a golden ticket to unimaginable wealth, it is not an easy option. It requires application, discipline, and a great deal of strategic planning to have any chance of long-term success.

In the first instance, you must have the necessary time. The downside of being your own boss is the temptation to follow the distractions, to put work aside with the promise of returning to it later at some mythical “more convenient” time. The bottom line is simple: If you don’t get the job done, you don’t get paid.

What’s more, creative ventures like desktop publishing also often mean self-marketing. If no one else has a pecuniary interest in your work, then no one else has an interest in helping you advertise it to the world.

Recognize value, spot scams

So we have to recognize that not all income opportunities are of equal value. Online surveys, just to give an example, can be an easy way to earn money if the rewards are attractive and the process follows. When an interview offers a dollar for an hour of work, or repeatedly shuts us out after ten minutes of wasted effort, it can be much more difficult, so the skill we need to develop quickly is the ability to spot poor value rather than trying to fix and make up for it. We also need to be able to spot outright scams, as for everyone trying to make a living through hard work and honest effort, there will be someone else willing to fleece them by exploiting their enthusiasm.

Working from home should be approached in the same way as any other vocation: with discipline, research, and a campaign plan through which to identify the most productive opportunities and separate them from the rest.