4 Practical Steps to Working from Home

Bonita Jewel, MFA
5 min readNov 3, 2021
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been writing articles on how to launch a work-from-home career — from my 10+ years of experience working from home …

The posts have included various pros and cons to working from home, scams to watch out for, and a variety of work-from-home options available.

If you are ready to begin working from home, naturally, the next step is actually starting.

But you need to get a few things in order before you begin to work from home.

And here are four practical steps you need to take at the start of your work-from-home journey:

1. Purchase work-from-home supplies.

Your shopping list will likely grow as time goes on.

For starters, buy only the items you need.

Some important supplies to start with include:

  • Business cards
  • Letterheads (you can create your own)
  • A computer and printer
  • Equipment pertaining to your work/business

You might try to find your equipment secondhand (check Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace) or “shop” around with friends and acquaintances to see if someone has gently-used equipment you can purchase for a lower price.

As an example, I have a friend who started making candles, and she found most of her wax at garage sales.

She scoured estate sales and thrift stores for candle-making supplies for a few months and found most of what she needed that way.

She purchased wicks and a few other necessary items but saved a lot of money by making secondhand purchases.

Note: If you are purchasing used material, make sure it is of high enough quality to sell or market.

Photo by Anthony Shkraba from Pexels

2. Create a dedicated workspace in your home.

If your work-from-home venture is something like soap-making or clothes design, you’ll need a good amount of space for your work — most…