If you’ve ever thought about working at home, now is the time to start planning. If you’re currently working somewhere though, don’t quit just yet. It could be a long road to travel before you can cut ties with your employer on solid ground, knowing that your bills are gonna get paid and you’re gonna eat. If you aren’t working, you might want to find a “real” job for a bit while you lay the groundwork to be successful working from home.
Making the Transition
If you are currently commuting to work each day, the last thing you wanna do is jump in head first and just up and quit. What if you can’t land a telecommute job or get a freelancing career off the ground? It'll be hard to concentrate on anything if you’re constantly worrying about how you’re gonna pay rent or where your next meal’s coming from.
First of all, do you want to keep doing what you’re doing? Or do you want a complete, fresh start? If you love what you do and want to work from home, there’s a small chance you could get your boss to let you do it if it’s at all feasible. Or maybe you could be doing something related. For example, let’s say you work as veterinarian assistant. Do you mostly do hands-on work in a small vet practice? Or are you mostly processing pet insurance paperwork and making appointments? If it’s the latter, maybe, just maybe you could be doing at least part of that from home.
If you’re looking for a fresh, new start then there are a few reliable places where you can find legit work from home jobs. One you can start with is FlexJobs.
Are You a Freelancer at Heart?
If working for the boss isn’t for you then you might want to consider freelancing. There are tons of things you can do as a freelancer, depending on your skills, your ability and willing to learn and what you enjoy. If you’re creative, then design may be a good fit. It might be web design, greeting card design, T-shirt design or print design (flyers, brochures, etc...) And there’s a huge market for all of those. If you’re analytically inclined then data research is always in demand. If you can write well, then there’s always businesses that need something written. But as mentioned above, if you’re already working, don’t quit just yet. Use your off time to start practicing, networking with others who do what you'd like to do and if needed, studying. Get some moonlighting work in. Get yourself out there and find clients to build a network for future work and references. Getting to know others in your field always pays off, too. Not only can you learn from them, but if you’re good enough you never know when their workload will overflow and they need to point clients to someone else – you.
Work at Home Ideas
Some of the most common telecommute positions are taking calls at home. You might be making reservations or offering customer service. But there’s no way I could cover every single job that can be done at home. There are just too many. Here are a few off the top of my head that I know of people doing – and quite successfully.
Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant can be many things. They might be an off-site office assistant, writing correspondence, making appointments, doing telephone interviews. Or they may do a variety of online work like posting on social media, editing blog posts, sending emails. And they’re in high demand. Large and small businesses alike are realizing how beneficial it is to have them. Freelancers even often use them. Sometimes you’re required to be available certain hours. Other times, as long as you get done what needs to get done in the time needed, it’s all up to you when you work. Just depends on what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. If you’re interested in becoming a virtual assistant, this VA guide should help.
Medical Billing and/or Coding
This is another growing industry, especially considering the shortage of coders who know and understand the new ICD-10 code sets. It’s a huge change that many health care providers just aren’t ready for and if you are, then you’re a step ahead of the curve and a true asset to many of them. Getting into medical billing or coding from home without any experience in the office may require patience and perseverance, though it can be done. Coding is normally easier to break into, since billing pretty much requires some face to face interaction. If you think this might be for you, then you can find out more about medical coding, stats, training, job outlook and more.
Social Media Consultant or Management
Every business needs social media these days. It’s a fast-growing industry and there are plenty of jobs available. But just because you use Pinterest everyday and can work your way through Facebook blindfolded doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good fit for this work. There’s actually a lot that goes into it. Here’s an amazing post that looks in-depth at what it could be like to work in social media.
As you can see there are many paths to working at home. Heck, if you’re a kid at heart, you could start a face-painting business, balloon animal business, etc. The key is to that kind of thing, though, is marketing. If you can get yourself out there, get reservations and referrals then it could turn into a full blown business. It all just depends on what you’re currently doing, what you want to do, what you’re able to do or what you’re willing and able to learn to do... and of course, planning ahead.
