While working from home, one may find it difficult to stay productive. As with any business, productivity is essential to making and maintaining a profit. Productivity in the head office must be held to the same expectations as in the corporate workplace.

It is important to identify productive activities. A task list should be made along with an agenda. Divide your tasks into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. Having an action plan in place on a daily basis allows you to check things off as you go to meet the weekly agenda. The same goes for weekly and monthly goals. Everything has to be accomplished for the annual goal to be achieved.

Making a list or agenda does not have to be a difficult process. Start by writing down what you want to accomplish for that year. You know there is no way to achieve that goal on its own, so you have to break it down into smaller ones. Each smaller target itself will have even smaller targets involved. Once you’ve set your goals, write them down on a traditional wall calendar, daily planner, or better yet, on the calendar in your computer’s operating software. I recommend that you use a computer generated calendar. Both Google and Yahoo have excellent calendar systems that allow you to customize your day, week, month, and year. You can set up push notifications that will notify you of an upcoming task or event.

Be sure to include in your daily schedule; hourly breaks, personal time, family time, and recreational time. These may seem obvious, but it is important to document them so that you can carry them out. Working too much is the main cause of low productivity. When you get burned out with tasks you’ve been working on for too long, you lose interest and your mind starts to wander. Don’t spend more than an hour at a time working on any given task. If that task is going to take more than an hour, take scheduled breaks so your mind can stay sharp and focused.

The most important thing is to reward yourself. As you complete certain tasks and goals, give yourself a reward. No matter what it is. Your reward can be a scoop of ice cream, going to the movies, or whatever. If your achievement was big enough to really celebrate, go to a nice restaurant with the family and explain to them that you are doing this because you achieved your goal. You never know, your family might enjoy it so much that they’ll help you reach your other goals so they can do it again.