The very word productivity may be one of the main reasons why people want to start their own business or work from home. Productivity by its very nature implies getting the maximum out of an individual, often at the expense of their individuality and quite often at the expense of any decent monetary reward.
It is important when setting up a business or working from home in any capacity to really understand the nature of productivity and why it is important. It is quite likely that many people wanting to work from home, whether enforced or not, will see it as often a degree of freedom that they have previously enjoyed. If they are able to combine doing the work they enjoy with working from home, then that freedom will be even greater.
Understanding the nature of productivity in the context of working from home is very important. It is not about getting as much out of yourself and burning out in the process. It is about maximising your own strengths, and spending as much time as possible doing the things that you enjoy doing, in the context within which you enjoy them and making money out of them, hopefully.
Bear in mind that running a home business and working from home does not mean that you're physically tied to your home. Being able to use a laptop or a cellphone with a wide range of apps gives you a high degree of flexibility in terms of movement and physical areas where you can work from.
The other really important thing about working from home is taking physical and mental breaks during the process of work. There is much evidence-based research that shows that it is a good idea to physically get up from your desk after about 30 minutes and have a quick stretch before sitting down again. This can help prevent many lower back problems that might otherwise occur by sitting in a rigid position for hours on end. Equally it is a good idea and much research that shows that mentally, someone's attention span is best for about 25/30 minutes. Combining these two is a good way to maximize your own productivity. Working from home allows you to do this in the way that working an office may not, simply because it may look as if you're slacking by having a quick couple of minutes breaks every half-hour or so.
Productivity is a word that can be measured in some senses, but in the context of working from home, or working for yourself, it should really be viewed as assessing your own level of contentment and comfort about the way you are working and the nature of the work you're producing.
It should be an important tool to gauge whether or not what you are doing is really liberating and freeing, or has become something of a trap you need to escape from.
Peter Main is freelance writer who has spent almost twenty years in the insurance industry, working at Lloyd's of London. He writes extensively about home insurance and also about the broader areas of personal finance, particularly about the most appropriate credit options offered by large companies, such as Honda, when purchasing their financial products.