Most retired baby boomers have tried their hands at a variety of home-based careers and businesses, from writing to consulting to even crafting, either full time or part time. Yes, more and more baby boomers are now choosing to work from home, either starting their own businesses or blending their post-retirement leisure time with their already established careers. This can be a daunting aspect that requires loads of direction, motivation and of course tweaking!

So, if you’re contemplating jumping off the corporate ladder to start your own business, or if you have just retired and need that extra income, then here are a few tips to help make you work better from home:

• List the necessities – Even if you are only working part time, you must make sure that you have everything that you need at hand. Nothing is more irritating that spending hours looking for a paper clip or a postage stamp or the stapler. Make a list of all the essential items that you require and take a trip down to your local office supply store just to stock up.

• Get Professional – When working from home, get a separate business phone number. Or, you could use your cell phone especially for business calls. A FAX line is another useful option.

• Get Computer Savvy – Now that you are working from home, its time to replace that old virus infested desktop computer with a trendier, faster laptop to save space. Check out the latest copier machines and all-in-one inkjet printers. It is unbelievable how an all-in-one would fit comfortable on your work desk and still not take up too much space.

• Get good quality chairs – If your work involves a lot of sitting, then getting comfortable furniture is very important. Good quality chairs will allow you to sit for hours on end at your desk without really straining your neck and back. This could be the best investment you might make, so don’t scrounge.

• Make your workplace pleasant – Make your workplace look appealing. Fill it with things that relax, uplift and inspire you. Choose colors that appeal to you and fill the room with soft lights. Yes, effective lighting makes a difference to breezing through your daily work and meeting deadline, and straining yourself out and getting worked up long before your deadline. Lamplights and soft lights that don’t cast shadows or glare are the best options.

• Keep time aside for Personal calls – All the time you spend working at the desk should be taken seriously. So, never take personal calls while working. Don’t encourage guests and visitors to drop in during working hours and stick to your regular schedule.

• Make a time table for yourself – Make sure that you are isolated from all distractions while working. Don’t take unnecessary breaks and avoid chatting online, or even doing the housework. These distractions could get in the way of your work and render you less productive.

It takes a unique work style and personality to actually carry off the whole ‘working-at-home’ effort

Today is the second annual National Work from Home Day, where employers are encouraged to transform their homes into offices for the day.
In addition to making employees happier and therefore more productive through aiding the work/life balance, the ability to work away from the office – even occasionally – lessens the burden on our roads and public transport networks, believes Work Wise UK.

‘Although some would suggest this could be an excuse to skive, or to extend the weekend, it has been demonstrated that enabling staff to work from home, even occasionally, increases productivity,’ said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, the not-for-profit organisation behind National Work from Home Day and Work Wise Week, which kicked off on Wednesday and runs until next Tuesday.

‘BT currently employs 64,000 flexible workers and 11,500 contracted full time home workers. Where it has introduced these "smarter" working practices, it has seen a 20 per cent increase in productivity. Although a real win-win situation is rare in life, working from home, and other similar smarter working practices, do not have a downside. They benefit all parties: more productivity for businesses,  

better work-life balance for staff, less congestion for drivers and less over-crowding for public transport users.’

However, despite many companies going public about their positive attitudes towards more home and flexible working, there are still many employers who have failed to see the light.

‘Home working isn’t a new concept, and whilst European companies have embraced it, British organisations still seem reluctant to go the whole hog and make it widely available,’ said Alistair McKinnon, a senior product manager for ntl: Telewest Business.

‘Part of the problem is that home working still has a stigma attached to it – employers fear that staff will watch daytime TV rather than crack on with their work. This is a misconception and the fact is that the home generally offers a more productive working environment, free from the distractions of the office.’

McKinnon added: ‘Staff should be encouraged to work a regular day when they work from home, and the vast changes in communications technology in recent years means that it is perfectly feasible to do so. We believe that National Working from Home day is an excellent initiative and hopefully as a result more businesses will see how home working can benefit both their organisation and their staff.’

What are your views? Are flexible working practices obviously a good thing, or is it unrealistic for companies to support everyone having the option of working from home? Leave your comments via the link below.

Finding good ideas for working at home seems to be, at a first glance, the first challenge facing any potential internet marketer. I have some good news for you. This article will show you that:

1-This is not your first challenge; you have already overcome your first challenge, and you might not have even noticed it.

2-Finding ideas for working at home is a challenge only if you mixed up the searching priorities. This lies at the heart of this article.

If finding ideas for working at home is not the first challenge, then what is the first challenge? First of all the tense of this question is wrong! Since you are already trying to find ideas for working at home then you have overcome the first challenge.

The first challenge is to realize the fact that you need to establish a home based business. The fact that you are already searching for ideas means that you have already crossed this bridge. This realization is crucial.

Normally when the idea of establishing our own business crosses our minds, we get stuck with the details and obstacles of establishing a traditional business. Once we hit that obstacle we realize that the costs will burry us alive, and the thought becomes a fantasy that we will never be able to achieve.

Once we expand our horizons and realize that a traditional business is not the only way to establish our own business, the skies become the limit and we find ourselves in the midst of abundant alternatives.

With this realization the answer to the next question becomes easy. What is the alternative to a traditional business? Of course a traditional business is one where you need to rent an office, a shop, a warehouse or any other place were you business need to be conducted. Therefore, the alternative to that is to work at home.

Congratulations! You have said it, "I want to work at home." Just by thinking or saying these words you have overcome your first obstacle. This is the tricky part now. If you are not careful with the next steps you follow, you might end up with no business at all.

The words "I want to work at home" bring a lot of energy and excitement into a person’s life and the following steps might not be well planned and therefore, the outcome will not be favorable at all.

Once you are struck with the idea, take a deep breath, sit down for a while, and then ask yourself the following questions:

1-Do I want to have a job working at home?

2-Do I want to establish a business working at home? If the answer is "yes" to this question then:

a.Do I want to sell my own product/service?

b.Do I want to sell other people’s products and services?

Once you get the answers to these questions, then you can start with your search for ideas for working at home without being confused. If you do not make your decision before you start the search, the outcome of your search will be very confusing for you. You will be getting all sorts of ideas regarding all the above aspects and it will be very hard for you to make a sound decision.

We have discussed some differences between finding jobs working at home and finding a business idea working at home in another article. Therefore, we will not indulge in this discussion here.

In your search for finding ideas for working at home you have to be careful as there are a lot of empty claims and promises out there. The rule that you need to remember is; if it sounds too good to be true, then it most probably is too good to be true.

In this article we have tried to show you a systematic method that will enable you to find ideas for working at home that will enable you to avoid a possible confusion that might discourage you from continuing the journey.

reported by Dana Write of IndyStar.com

Stay-at-home moms? Yes. Businesswomen? Yes.
These are mompreneurs, a growing breed of women who not only stay home with the kids but also own companies, do work from home or contract their services.
There are an estimated 10 million mompreneurs in the United States, according to Patricia Cobe, who co-authored the book "Mompreneurs Online" and trademarked the term "mompreneur" 10 years ago after noticing a trend of moms wanting to have both worlds.
"It seems these moms, today’s moms, have more of a desire to stay home with kids than mothers in the previous generation," said Cobe. "With their mothers, there was this big push to stay in the corporate world. But they grew up in these families and really didn’t want that for their own kids."
But these moms still want some type of career, perhaps not just because they are ambitious but also because they need the income. The Internet has opened up countless opportunities for these women, and other companies have formed to cater to the mompreneur group.
One of them is Stroller Strides, a California-based company, which offers exercise classes for moms-to-be, moms with babies and moms with toddlers. It is based on power walking and strength training with resistance bands, and babies in strollers are part of the workout.
Carmel resident Melissa Kummings bought a franchise of Stroller Strides in 2005 to earn money while at home with daughter Trude, 7, and son Gus, 4.
Kummings had worked in a high-stress, high-travel job in California. But after moving to Indiana and having her children, she was ready for something else.
"I really wanted something that I loved to do, something I had a passion for," Kummings said. Since she loved exercise and fitness, Stroller Strides was perfect.
Kummings dedicates about 10 to 20 hours a week to her job and said if it took any more time than that, she wouldn’t do it. Three mornings a week, she teaches an hourlong class and spends the rest of her work time keeping up her Web site and dealing with corporate issues.
How does she do it all?
"It’s still challenging, because you’re broken into so many pieces," she said. "You have to know that you aren’t going to be perfect at either thing, and that’s OK."
Rita Fisher couldn’t agree more. She believes balance is a myth if you’re a mom and businesswoman.
Fisher, of Columbus, Ind., is the owner of ExecutiveCareer Pro.com, a company that writes resumes and cover letters for executives. She has two sons, Edison, 8, and Jackson, 5, and works 40 hours a week from home.
"I like to use the word priority," she said. "Whatever you put first or at the top of your list is what will get done."
Fisher has a bit of advice for moms who may want to venture into an at-home business.
"Only start it if you are really passionate about doing it," she said. On that note, she has started another venture, Smile Mailer.com. The service allows users to go to the Web site, fill out a form and have a greeting card mailed to anyone on their behalf. Fisher offers the service at no charge, as a ministry of sorts, using income from her for-profit business to fund it.
"If you really love what you do, you are going to do well at it," she said

Wouldn’t it be nice to roll out of bed, slip on a robe and slippers and shuffle down the hall to your home office to work? Today over 137 million people world-wide do just that at least part time as more and more companies take advantage of the cost savings that telecommuting programs offer. One of the best places to find these companies is online, but you must beware. While more and more legitimate work-at- home jobs can be found online, so can scams. Here’s what you need to know and do if you are looking for a real work-at-home job online.

1) Understand that you aren’t going to sign up to work at home. Telecommuting work is found in the same way that traditional work is found and usually involves an application or resume, and interview process.

2) You can’t pay to get hired. Any company that says you can work for it by sending some money is not offering a job. It’s okay to invest in a good work-at-home job database or hiring a professional resume writer, but you should never, ever, ever, pay to get hired. 
 
3) Be open to many job types. Instead of thinking, "I want to sit home and type," think about all the skills you have that can be used at home. Are you a good researcher? Do you have good phone skills? Are you highly organized? Are you creative? Can you write persuasively? Make a list of all your skills, experiences, talents and hobbies and search for jobs that need those attributes.

4) Learn to do a job that has a high demand for workers. There are certain job types that have many job openings right now such as copywriting, customer service, web and graphic design, medical transcription, writers, and more. If you can’t do any of these jobs, why not learn how? Most can be either self-taught or learned through an online or correspondence course.

5) Look for work where jobs are posted. Most people get in scam trouble because they look for the wrong types of jobs in the wrong places. Use job search sites not search engines to find work-at-home jobs. Sign up for free ezines that deliver work-at-home jobs to your email box.

6) Be professional. I can’t believe some of the email I receive from people who want to work at home. They tell me they can type and yet their letters have typos and grammatical errors. Or they say they want to work at home, but provide no information on what they are qualified to do. You have one chance to convince a potential employer that you can do the job. The employer doesn’t care about your childcare hassles or illness. He only cares about who is the best person to do the job. So all your interactions should focus on what you can do for the employer.

Today, the opportunities to get hired to work from home are endless and continue to grow. But if you are to get hired to work at home, its important to understand what work-at-home jobs are, why companies offer them, and how you can position yourself to get hired. By understanding the six telecommuting rules outlined here, you will find real jobs faster and improve your chances of getting hired.