7 Lifestyle Changes For A Home Based Internet Marketer

If you are Internet savvy, you’re well aware of the number of hours people spend online…searching for information – chatting up with friends – uploading pictures and downloading movies and music.

Now, imagine the number of hours that most Internet marketers spend working to create their income and sustaining it to support their lifestyle…

It wouldn’t be wrong to suggest that Internet marketers spend anywhere between 8 and 16, 17, 18… even more hours a day online.

Wouldn’t you agree this rigorous schedule could hamper one’s family and  lifestyle?

So, to maintain a balance between your home life and home based marketing business, read the 7 helpful tips below…

1. Have Fixed Waking and Sleeping Hours

As a marketer, you’ll probably not start out with fixed working hours, especially when you are beginning to set up the business.

Your entire day is spent in emailing, telecommunicating, setting up websites, developing promotions and what not!

In fact, if you plan to work globally then you need to take into consideration the working hours of the other clients and team members, living in different time zones.

Now, assuming your office is in your home, you can easily be online on your laptop 24-7, talking to clients and dealing with other businesses. But is it really feasible? Is this lifestyle suitable for your health? Keep in mind your other duties, your family and most importantly, yourself.

Otherwise, within a short period of time, you’ll begin to feel the pressure, get  stressed out and experience frustration over working those long hours.

You can become drowsy all the time and feel like throwing yourself on the couch for few hours of sleep! Prolonged stress also reduces business productivity and let us not forget creativity.

Therefore, the best way is to fix specific sleeping and waking hours. Depending on your lifestyle, set up a daily schedule and most importantly, follow it.

Also, keep in mind that it is necessary to spend a minimum of six to eight hours every night for sleeping. (Yea, right!)

You’ll wake up refreshed and rejuvenated. In the initial days, adhering to a new sleeping pattern may seem difficult but give yourself 10-15 days to try it on for size. You’ll be glad you did.

2. Spend Quality Time with Family

Spending all your valuable time working is not possible when you have a family that also needs your time.

The time you spend on Internet marketing and management should not clash with the time you are supposed to devote too the family; even though you are working from home. (I am stressing this point over and over again so that it becomes etched in your mind).

Try to wrap up your work by six or seven pm and spend the rest of the evening with your family. Or if mornings or afternoons is better scheduled time with your family, synchronize that time and put it aside on a consistent basis.

Now, some people think that managing a business from home is all the more beneficial but where “time” is concerned, it can spell trouble.

How? As a home based marketer, you will be inclined to spend more hours at ‘work’ than ‘in home.’ So the time you should be spending with the family gets spent on your work.

By the time this is realized, your family members have already begun to withdraw and are not trusting your words, creating a bit of unwanted tension.

If you are a home based Internet marketer, treat it as you would offline work. Maintain a separate working space and fix work hours as you would in a “coporate” office.

Separate specific work and family time. Believe it or not, if family life gets disrupted, it seriously impacts our work in a negative way…

You can’t concentrate on work, become frustrated and business starts spiraling downwards.

Therefore, maintain a healthy relationship with family and create a balance between the two – it undoubtedly helps in the long run.

3. Keep Work and Home Life Separate

If your wife, husband, kids, parents, sisters and brothers – anyone who lives with you – is not interested in the work you do even remotely, it is important to keep your work and personal life separate.

Discussing work issues at home may not be welcome. Many friends and family members have no clue of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Of course, this is a generic statement. There can be exceptions where your family members are eager to know about your daily work or business. In that case, you can discuss it with them but it is also necessary to be judgmental about what information to share and what not to.

But you have to consider another dimension. When the online Internet marketing business is home based, there cannot be much distinction between work and family life.

Apart from maintaining some kind of balance between work and home life, the distinction is necessary for another reason – to keep the business outside the influence of family members.

In other words, when you are discussing business with family on a daily basis, it’s human nature for others to start commenting or advising about the business.

Initially, you may welcome this but after a while, this may irritate you.  Uncalled for advices is not welcomed by everyone. Worse is when “what other people say” begins to cloud your judgment about your business.

Therefore, keep the work and home life separate. Seek advice or consultation when required; otherwise, believe in what you are doing.

4. Eat a Good Diet

A healthy diet is the door to a healthy mind and body. In the marketing business, the working hours are so erratic that one loses track of several other things, such as your diet.

Now, why is diet so important and how does it impact the business productivity?

Of course, diet is important, just like all of the other tips listed above and below. A good diet refreshes your mind and keeps your body healthy – a prerequisite to run a successful business.

With all the business pressures, it can be taxing for the mind and body. So, just imagine, if you have an erratic lifestyle and diet, how would you normally try to replenish your body’s resources? By eating pizzas and burgers? By eating all the fried unhealthy stuff? By eating canned foods?

Eating prepackaged and unhealthy food lowers your metabolism and weakens you from the inside. The process is extremely slow; it might take years to actually show the symptoms of unhealthy diet in your body.

The question is – can you afford ill health? No matter how wealthy you are, bad health should always be kept at bay.

So again, no matter how hectic your marketing business is, make sure to have four meals daily. Start with a healthy breakfast, lunch, snacks, and finish it off with a light dinner.

As a result, you won’t feel hungry, your mind is wholly concentrated on the work and thus, your business productivity is not affected.

5. Physical Exercise Is A Must!

Like a healthy diet is a necessity for the well being of your mind, physical exercise is a necessity to develop a healthy body. This is essential even more because the marketing business is home based.

You do not have to commute anywhere; there is no typical ‘running around’ that happens in office. All you do is sit at your work station and work on your computer. This is an example of sedentary lifestyle.

Sooner or later, you may notice a change in your weight especially… which no one wants.

To solely run a business, you need to be healthy. And well being does not only come from a good diet but by physical exercises as well. Take up a gym membership, do cycling, swimming, walking, jogging, running, and any other exercise you feel like. In fact, researches have proved that doing household chores helps a person to keep in shape.

In short, what is implied here is that never make your lifestyle sedentary. The kind of physical exercise needed depends on the work establishment – home based or non-home based.

When you are setting up your business, much of the time is spent traveling or in other words, you are active. But when the business is set up and running smoothly, it is human psyche to just sit back and relax. There is no harm in relaxing but keep your body active, and this can only be done through physical exercises.

Without a healthy body, you won’t be able to handle the demanding nature of the marketing business. As a result, the business will slow down, projects won’t be completed on time, clients will be dissatisfied, and business productivity reduces – all this because the business owner is not agile enough; not a sensible reason to lose business for!

6. Meditate!

Using power yoga and meditation are two examples of great stress busters. Meditation relaxes the mind and eases all the tension. It is normal to feel stressed and frustrated over certain business matters. With the amount of complications our modern lifestyle throws at us, stress has become a perpetual syndrome.

Therefore, meditation or power yoga once in the morning for 10-15 minutes helps a lot. Not only is meditation an excellent stress reliever but it also helps to build focus and concentration.

Ideally, this is how you should go about meditating – get up in the morning, freshen yourself, sit in an open or empty space (preferably in the direction of the rising sun), and meditate for 10-15 minutes.

If you do not have any idea on how to meditate, buy a book or CD to read and watch how meditation is done. Proper posture is essential in this; otherwise, it will have negative effect.

Make sure your surroundings are quiet and you are not disturbed by anyone. By creating a physical and mental balance, meditation increases business productivity.

A sense of satisfaction and fulfillment dawns on you and the experience of getting rewarded for the work accomplished helps to slingshot productivity upwards.

The more you practice meditation, you develop a better self and that change is clearly visible in the work you do. You are self – motivated, composed, relaxed, devoted, and committed to your work.

Meditation builds a sense of reassurance and equips you to handle problematic situations in a calm and composed manner.

7. Love Your Work and Yourself!

It is important that you actually love the work you are doing. The purpose of being an Internet marketer should not be solely based on materialistic gains.

Yes, it is a major part but it should not engulf your life completely. Be ethical and follow certain rules and regulations while running the business.

You should love yourself. Don’t get “consumed” by work. Devote time to yourself as well. The idea is to create a harmonic balance between your work and home life. When both are controlled, you”ll find yourself feeling more energetic and happy.

An online marketing business is a lucrative source of income, provided you build the right contacts and are aware of the know-how of running the business in a productive way. Like any other business, this also requires discipline, management, commitment, and devotion.

Divide the 24 hours in sections and assign each section to a particular task, and avoid overlapping working and home life together. Little changes in lifestyle and management practices go a long way for efficient business productivity.

The 7 suggested guide points will help in taking a step forward in organizing each business day for optimum utilization of time both for work and family.