WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY:
Tips for Husband and Wife Teams

By Trish DeMatteos for Work-From-Home.org

Deciding to work from home together is a great idea. You’ll have more time together, time with your children, and you’ll get to live a fun, totally flexible lifestyle with as much financial reward as you’re willing to work for.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Get there faster with these five powerful tips for making you more productive together.

WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY TIP 1:
Work from home partners need to Communicate

If you work from home together it is very important you communicate. Have meetings! Have meetings at the beginning of the week, at the end of the week, and whenever necessary in-between. You may be husband and wife (or wife and husband) but that doesn’t mean you can’t act like Fortune 500 CEO’s while you work. (You’re luckier than most CEOs. Most Fortune 500 CEO’s don’t get to wear fuzzy slippers at their power meetings.)

Have meetings to plan and review the year, and meetings to review monthly sales goals. The more meetings you have, the more effective you will be as a work at home team.

WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY TIP 2:
Have separate offices.

No matter what it takes, try to have separate offices. If you do, you will be blessed with less stress, more productivity, a happier life, and a much, much faster realization of your dreams. If you absolutely must share an office, at least put up some kind of barrier between desks, such as a curtain, and be as far away as possible, and make a rule: NO INTERRUPTIONS. Learn to ignore each other.

WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY TIP 3:
Work from home Tools.

Even if you work at home in a small business, you need a professional phone system. The one I use has four lines, of course a HOLD button, intercom, conference calling, speaker, headset, voicemail button and I can even transfer calls. A fancy computerized phone system that costs thousands of dollars? No way. I bought it at the local office supply place and have appreciated every little penny that we spent on it. We use the same system throughout the house so we can take business calls and put them on hold from wherever we are in the house without running to our offices. Other tools to optimize productivity, like a copier, good software for your business and a good computer system are also very important.

WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY TIP 4:
Goal-Setting.

One of the most powerful miracles on the planet is the power of goal setting. There are books, audiotapes and other products to help you set effective goals. If you have a vision of a better future for you or your family, goal setting will get there more certainly and more rapidly. Invest in audiotapes or books to help you set effective goals. My personal favorite is Zig Zigler’s “Goals” cassettes.

WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY TIP 5:
Respect each other.

A work from home team that is motivated to succeed together will get there in half the time. And as a bonus, you’ll have more fun getting there. Don’t forget to joke around sometimes, compliment and praise each other’s work frequently, respect each other’s time, needs and feelings and be thoughtful and considerate of each other. Unfriendly competition and other symptoms that there are problems in the relationship will only make you less productive. Remember the Golden Rule and use it to accomplish your work from home dreams faster and easier.