Do YOU have the Self Discipline to Work From Home?

Do YOU Have the Attitude it Takes to Work from Home?
July 15, 2013
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July 23, 2013
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Do YOU have the Self Discipline to Work From Home?

In the last article the importance of choosing and wearing the right attitude to successfully work from home was discussed. Every day we have a choice of what attitude we wear. This is the one choice that we can choose daily.  

What is Self Discipline?

The definition of self discipline is “The act of training one’s own feelings, desires, and/or emotions with the intent of improving oneself for moral or mental improvement”.

Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself take action regardless of your emotional state or regardless of how you feel at that particular moment. Self discipline often means sacrificing the great “now” moment for the GREATER reward at the end.

Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. The pinnacle of self discipline is when you make a decision and it transforms into a commitment! There’s a ‘virtual guarantee’ that you will follow through.

Self Discipline, Careers and Work

When you work in an actual office, (a brick and mortar setting), the form of discipline is already mandated by the employer. For example, the days you work, the time you clock in, when you take a break, and when your work or project is due. However when you work at home, the restrictions and mandates are not always in place. Working at home provides a tremendous amount of freedom and flexibility to choose how and when you “want” to do your work. This is where your self-discipline will need to kick in to overdrive. You will need to set certain standards of self discipline for yourself, not only for work, but also for your home/private life.

Tips for inculcating Self-Discipline

Below are some tips on how you can exercise some forms of self-discipline while working at home.

  • Dress in office attire while you work at home. This will help to make you feel that you are working rather than relaxing at home.
  • Set your working hours for the day.  Plan your work, and work your plan. Your family members should be informed of your working hours. This is to ensure that they will not disturb you unnecessarily while you work.  Perhaps, you can have a sign displaying your working hours on your office door so that everyone in the house is aware of it. If you take lunch breaks, you can also have a sign indicating that too.
  • Interruptions cannot be avoided, but need to be kept to a minimum. You need to be focused and try not to let interruptions from family members, friends or relatives take too much of your time while you work.
  • Prioritize your activities for each day. Set goals! One way is to write down a list of things you need to do at the beginning of each day. After that, evaluate the tasks in the list and prioritize them.
  • Assess your own performance- This can act as a guide to see where strengths and weakness lie. If there is room for improvements, develop strategies to improve your work.
  • Keep all e-mails in your inbox until a certain time of the day to read them.
  • Consolidate all outer office activities such as appointments and errands that need to be handled for a specific morning or afternoon. This will save you traveling time, effort and costs and keep you on a specific work schedule.
  • Plan telephone calls before dialing. You need to be clear of what you want to say and what you want to accomplish in making the call. Make a check off list of points to raise during the call.
  • Schedule time off from your work on a regular basis. You need to work on staying fit and healthy by taking time off to recharge your batteries.

Many home-based workers find difficulty in trying to place their attention on work and not to be distracted by the work environment. Hence, the need for self-discipline is important to be truly successful.

Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you for free. All you have to give is a little time and effort along with some harsh self discovery. Even though many feel that discipline is prison it is actually freedom. As Stephen R. Covey once wrote, “the undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions”. And in the longer term, the undisciplined lack the freedom that comes with possessing particular skills and abilities – without self discipline, skills and abilities are lost.

Five Traits Needed to Bring Back Self Discipline

If you struggle with self-discipline, there are five traits to follow to re-program your thinking and bring back the discipline;

  • Self Knowledge: Introspection and self-analysis, you need to decide what behavior best reflects your goals and values. This process is most effective when tied to written expression- write out your goals, dreams and ambitions
  • Conscious Awareness: Self-discipline depends upon conscious awareness as to both relative to what you are doing and what you are not doing. If you aren’t aware your behavior is undisciplined, how will you know to act otherwise? Once you are aware you have the ability to change the outcome
  • Commitment: Start by making a conscious decision to follow through on what you say you’re going to do –  Take into consideration when and how the task is completed, and put in place a system to track these commitments. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets improved”.
  • Courage: Self-discipline is highly dependent on courage. Don’t pretend something is easy for you to do when it is in fact very difficult and/ or painful. Have the courage to admit when you struggle, ask for help and find solutions. Find the courage to face this head on. As you begin to accumulate small private victories, your self-confidence will grow and the courage that pins self-discipline will come more naturally.
  • Internal Coaching: Remind yourself of your goals, call up courage, reinforce your commitment and be conscious of the task at hand. And remember,” The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret”

Self discipline is the only thing we really need to learn. With it we can pretty much do anything we set our mind to. Anything at all! What can you accomplish? What are you going to set your mind to today? What attitude do you pick to wear?

Work from Home Employment Opportunities at HMS

If you have what it takes to work from home — in terms of infrastructure, attitude, discipline, etc., then you could be a part of our growing team of Teleprospectors working from home. Find out more about our work from home employment opportunities.

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