Have you noticed how long it takes for you to settle down to work? You need a cup of coffee, and you may want to have some background music as you attend to your emails. And as you replied the last of the emails, you may just want to update your status on facebook or twitter and check out statuses of your friends.

Before you realised it, half a day has gone by. Then you begin to flip through your appointment book or to do list to see what needs to be done today. You realise you need to refer to some research you did some time back and you start looking for the document – which you cannot find. You spend 15 minutes searching, and then decided to give it up and redo the research.

As you do that, your desk calendar caught your eye and you realise you have bills you need to pay. Because you don’t want to furnish late fee, you decided you better go on line and make that payment now.

When you went on line you receive different text messages and you replied the messages. And by the time you entertained them you felt hungry, it is already noon time. You went to the kitchen and what do you know? You had not stocked up on groceries.

So you went to the grocery store to get some food. Then you bumped into a friend at the mall and you chatted a while as you caught up.

When you come back, it is close to 3pm and you feel a little tired by now and needed a break, so you turned on the TV to relax. And then you went back to your desk or home office and realise that you have not started on the work you need to do today. You were easily distracted and scattered and you had not started on your work.

By now you panicked because you had committed to work that needs to be delivered but you really have not started on anything. So you frantically sat down to work and you down another cup of coffee to concentrate. In the mean time emails still come in and your phone range periodically. You worked till steam comes off your head and miraculously you managed to come up with a draft for your client or prospect.  Now you need to put that together into some kind of presentation format.

At the end of a long day, you are stretched to your limit and stressed out. You wonder why you ever made the decision to work freelance or work from home. And whatever happened to time freedom?

What happened to time freedom? You are supposed to have flexible workings hours so you wake up when you like and work any time you like and have lots of time left over.

To be a successful home business owner you need to put in routines and processes to help ensure your productivity and efficiency. You really cannot afford to waste time and energy. You need to follow the structures and schedule you set. You certainly can have time freedom but it is a freedom you achieve and earn when you follow the structures and routine.

You need systems and processes to streamline your tasks. You need a system for filing your documents, you need a process to manage your emails and phone calls, and you put in structures so you can work at your peak without distractions – these are all necessary elements that contribute to your time management and efficiency.

If you do not have these structures, you can be very busy, very tired and stressed out, and not be effective. Because you are not working under optimum conditions and are just wasting your time and your resources. And do that over time and you will be taxing your body and health.

So start managing your work routines and habits if you want to avoid stressing out your body and achieving a lot more in your personal and business life.

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