I see a lot of misconceptions about working from home. Many people (my older brother is a prime example) think that what happens is we barely meet ends meet, but it’s ok because we can get up at 11:00, put in a few hours of work, then spend the day doing whatever we want.

For most people who work at home I guarantee you that they work more than 8 hours a day and it is much harder than it looks. I’ll post about this separately, but for now, here are 5 good tips to make working from home actually work for you.

Create a work routine

This may be an essential factor for success, so despite the relative freedom you have, I suggest settling into some routine or another. Staying at home does give you the option to sleep an hour extra if you really want to, but most people become efficient with regularity, so I would create a pretty stable schedule if I were you. For me working from 7:00 - 13:00 and then from 17:00 -  21:00 works best, somehow I am utterly useless from lunchtime for a good 4 hours. If you’ve been struggling to get enough done, this is a must do, at least until you get your workload into shape.

The net will still be here tomorrow

A lot of people, especially bloggers think they have to be alert at all times. Riding a new story as it comes is their biggest concern, so they can drag in all those new visitors. First of all, being 24 hours late will not make a difference. If it does make a difference you have a blog like Lifehacker, which means you can afford to have people to do this for you. Always remember that it’s not just when you cover something, but also, how. Try and find unique angles at looking at things, write quality content. People won’t give a shoot if you cover something a bit later, I know I don’t.

Find the tools for your work

Whatever you’re doing there are tools to do it better. Unless you’ve spent days and days looking for the best one I’m telling you, there’s a better one for you. I spend ages, and I mean weeks, searching for an application to manage my documents, tasks and so on all in one place. I found the tool for me about 2 weeks ago, after about a year of searching.

All in all, spend 2 hours every week to perfect your trade and the tools you use. Learn some keyboard shortcuts, look through the program options, perhaps there’s something you can use, read documentation and so on. If you learn 2 new things every week, that’s 104 tricks per year, eventually you’ll be a fine tuned system working “for you”, making you 100% faster, meaning you’ll earn the same amount faster. You can spend the rest of your time working some more, or watching Star Trek (no other options).