Time management tips for home-based entrepreneurs

By Alison Coleman,Guardian Professional, 7-10-2013

Without a daily, often lengthy commute, home-based entrepreneurs can pack several more hours' work into their day. But will it make their businesses more successful?

 One of the biggest advantages of running a business from home is having the freedom to be as productive as you like. Without a daily, often lengthy commute, home-based entrepreneurs can pack several more hours' work into their day. But will it make their businesses more successful?

Organisational psychologists have often argued that working longer doesn't make people more productive.

Indeed, many insist that it has the opposite effect. Then there are the concerns over the impact of a long-hours culture on work-life balance, health and safety. Nevertheless, many self-employed people insist there is a business case for keeping the meter running into the night and that it is a necessary part of being an entrepreneur.

Having spent years running offices in London, George Shaw now runs his public relations business Avocado Media from his home in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, where he regularly puts in 10-hour days, often eating 'al desko' lunches, and working some of his weekends too.

His extended working pattern, he explains, is partly due to the pressures of the media sector and partly the nature of the food and beverage industry where many of his clients are based.

He says: "Most of them are restaurants, so they think little of calling between 6pm and 10pm, or even later. With new clients it's very important that I get early results to prove my worth, otherwise they often get cold feet.

"Also, the market I chose to work in, predominantly independently-owned restaurants, where I deal directly with the business owners rather than middle management of corporate clients, means that if press coverage for them dries up and their takings go down, it's very easy for them to stop using PR as a quick cashflow fix."

But if the long and unsociable hours are the downside of running a home-based business, they are outweighed by the flexibility it brings.

Shaw adds: "If I've work very late one night, I can take the next afternoon off and I see much more of my family now, even with the long hours that I spend in my office, than I did when I was travelling to London every day. I enjoy what I do and love not commuting, but I would rather work fewer hours and not have to do some of the 'nitty gritty' that I used to be able to delegate when I had staff."

Some home-based business owners have started up as they mean to go on, refusing to let their business dominate their lives, and determined not to fall into the trap of seeing long hours as a guarantee for success.>>>