Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! Baby’s been sick!

Dinner’s ready, the kids are screaming.
Cat’s jumped on the sideboard.
It’s making its way to the birdcage  the door’s ajar.
Dog’s jumped towards a chair to bite the cat that’s now got the budgie.
Dog’s slipped in the baby sick, misses the cat.
Cat spits out the budgie, stepped in the soup that’s oh so hot!
Bird lands in the baby’s lap, is spotted by the cat which pounces.
Baby stops screaming, begins to giggle.
Cat sinks fangs into budgie.

Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again!”

Cat retreats licking scalded paw and vomit from back.
Dog barking.
Boot removed from hound’s rectum … CRASH!
Wounded budgie limps onto washed and not so neatly stacked dinner plates.
Ridden them to the floor.
Chirps its last chirp.
Knock on the door as the phone rings.

Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again!”

Dog stopped sulking, now chasing baby.
Baby starts resuscitation on budgie.
Baby tosses budgie aside, attention turned to dog, now howling
Baby holds firmly its tail.
Budgie lands in the dinner …
And so does the cat.
Baby bored with the dog, joins cat and budgie in dinner.
Washing machine starts to cycle as the tumble dryer seizes.

Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again … and she’s filled her nappy.”

“WHY DON’T YOU DO SOMETHING?” screams my harassed and thoroughly stressed out wife.

“Because I’m trying to !@!&*ING work!”

Discipline

There are only five things you need in order to work successfully from home:

Discipline, discipline, discipline and discipline … and somewhere to work!

When you first leave a job to start your journey, you will probably be working from home. Even when you run your business there will often be many hours spent in the home environment.

Working from home is expanding at an incredible rate.

The main and most logical reason is, that when you rent office space you have to cover two sets of overhead.

1) the rent on the office etc and
2) the rent/mortgage on your home — before you make a penny cent of profit.

Even large multinationals are letting their staff work from home these days because of the massive benefits it brings.

But on the other side of the coin there are just as many drawbacks. The first major problem with doing business from home is that it is not a working environment. It is extremely difficult to drag yourself out of bed and sit down at the desk to begin your day.

You lay longer in the pit because there’s no boss waiting for you in the office, and also there’s nowhere to commute to.

Second, is the problem of space. Most people do not have a spare room to dedicate to an office so they try to work on the kitchen table. It is very, very difficult to do a full day’s work from home. There are simply too many distractions.

Having said that, I am writing this section right now in the comfort of my own home. We do have offices, but I have purpose built offices in my home.

Regardless, when I wrote the first draft for The Omniscience Principle I managed to create a favorable work atmosphere in the back of the house. I was lucky enough to have a spare room to dedicate as an office.

I still have the odd distractions, the wife and kids, but they have learned that when daddy’s in his office, he’s working and to enter head bowed, cap in hand and wary that I might bite their heads off at any given second!

Seriously, they have learned that I am disciplined and if I’m in the office I really do need to be left alone.

I have almost got the balance right and it’s great.

There’s no getting up at some ungodly hour, kicked out of my cozy, warm bed by an alarming alarm to face a miserable journey in rush hour traffic.

I get up, answer a few emails, get washed and go into the gym. I arrive in my office at around 10.00am, fresh and ready for a day’s work. I can watch the birds in the garden, even have a break and sit with them in the summer whenever I want. I can stop when I want and start when I want. The only boss I have is me, although I am a hard task master!

If I do need to drive to the office, I enjoy a leisurely jaunt through the forest at mid-morning when there’s only the wildlife about. There’s a relaxing cruise along a clear motorway and I arrive a happy man … most of the time!

To work successfully from home takes far more organisation and dedication than working from an office.

There’s no accountability for a start.

If you decide not to go in one morning, who’s going to know, who’s going to kick your arse?… no one that’s who!

You are your own boss and there is no one in this world you can blame if things aren’t done.

If you haven’t a spare room in the house DEDICATE SOME SPACE.

Section off a working area and ensure it is precisely that. An area for work. It’s no good having all your papers and computer on the kitchen table if it has to be cleared every time you want a meal. There’s no way, in a month of Sundays, you’re going to stay organized.

Tidy Desk, Tidy Mind!

I have made a good living working out of home. I’ll tell you what worked for me whilst I was on the up, I still work hard but have as much time off as I want.

When working, I have very strict hours:
10.00am till generally 4.00pm, Monday to Friday.

I always start the day with a shower. If you haven’t got a power shower, and I mean a powerful one, I would highly recommend you get one at the first available opportunity.

I discovered the extraordinary benefit in a hotel in the States a few years ago, and no, I’m not about to go into some debauched and perverted story.

Everything in America is big, and that includes their showers. This particular one was amazing, the jet was especially powerful.

I stood with my back to it, and it was then that I discovered the Power of the Shower!

I’ve read about this phenomenon since and it’s well known to the medical profession, but it was a revelation to me at the time!

If you direct a powerful, hot jet of water around the base of the skull and neck, just where they join, the result is exhilarating. Massage this area by moving slightly from side to side so that the water hits the whole area.

Apparently, this stimulation causes the body to release chemicals called endorphins. I have no idea what actually happens, but I can promise, it really sets you up for the day.

You’ll be hard pushed to find a shower that matched the ferocity of the American one, but a reasonable power shower will do the job.

This is my working week. I will work longer if I have to, a lot longer, but I try to get everything done within my set time frame. I fully understand that starting a business takes total commitment, dedication and anyone who believes it doesn’t, is quite frankly, deluded.

I have a dedicated home telephone line and a business line. I will not answer the business line out of hours unless an appointment is made. I have found that the boundaries between the workplace and home life can blur. If they do, it’ll be your work that suffers AND your family life.

Some people tend to work 24–7 when starting up.

They roll out of bed, crawl into the dedicated work area, finish late, and drag themselves onto the sofa, bad tempered and grizzly, where they fall asleep.

Next morning the cycle begins again!

This isn’t the grim and inevitable reality of working towards freedom.

Work productive hours … eventually things will get easier, and you always have a clear picture of what you are toiling towards, which is why we went through the goal setting exercises.

You are only truly productive for a few hours a day.

This can sometimes be stretched out to five or six hours, but peak performance cannot be sustained for long periods. I can assure you, if you try to work too hard, you’ll end going round in square circles.

Yes, we do have to put in many hard, extra hours in the early days and when a deadline has to be met, but as a rule, aim to stick to a productive, constructive, disciplined working schedule.

When you have got to finish time … FINISH!

Close your books, shut down the computer and go and spend some quality down time. Establish your working parameters.

They do not have to be nine to five. One of my friends loves working through the night. I get e-mail from him at 4.00am in the morning just to prove he’s working at some strange hour.

It works for him!

You should be dedicating one or two evenings a week to contacting people and introducing them to your new business. This doesn’t mean overtime. If you spend two hours on a Monday night phoning, take two hours out in the morning — don’t start till 11.00am.

Decide what hours you are going to work and stick to them!

Discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline!

SO THE ANSWER TO POWER AND FREEDOM IS TO CHANGE AND GET RICH.