There will be days when nothing seems to go right and you begin to wonder if working at home is worth all the stress. After all, when you have a regular job you can put in your 40 hours and forget about it the rest of the time. You can actually relax on the weekends.

Here are the reasons I continue struggling along even on the difficult days:

• to be home with my kids
• no boss hanging over my shoulder
• I love the work (most of the time)
• it’s up to me how much money I make (don’t have to ask for pay raises)
• independence
• to create residual income so I can take a day off and know that the money is still coming in

But there are many times when it all seems too overwhelming. I have enough work to keep ten people busy for months. That’s when it’s time to outsource.

The best places to find people to help include:

• the local college
• rentacoder.com
• stay-at-home moms who want to work a few hours each day
• elance.com

College students and stay-at-home moms are often willing to work for a fair price. If you live near a college, pin a note up on the job listing bulletin board or contact the office that helps students find local work.

To find moms who would like to work at home ask other people who run their own online business if they know of any, or mention it in a forum for moms (make sure it’s okay with the forum administrator), or post a job on Craigslist.

They don’t necessarily have to live near you. Many people work as virtual assistants and will never meet you in person. You can use Camtasia to teach them what you want them to do and put the files online for them to watch or copy the file to a DVD and mail it to your assistant.

A great benefit of using Camtasia to create a tutorial is that once you record it you don’t have to do it over if you hire someone else. You simply show them the same tutorial.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed, find some help. It could be a nephew or niece, a son or daughter, or someone on the other side of the country.

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1. You have to be a self-starter. Working at home leaves you no boss pushing you to get the work done. It’s up to you to get up, get to the computer, and do what needs to be done today.

2. You have to be able to say “no” a lot. No to the neighbors who think you just sit around at home all day. No to the wonderful organizations who need volunteers.

The hardest people to say no to are your family. You have to say no to your kids who want you to play or take them to the park or watch a DVD with them.

Even though you are home with the kids, you still have a job that requires a certain number of hours each day. Give you kids some reward for letting you work part of the day.

3. You have to be able to say “no” to the TV. It’s so easy to turn the TV on and just veg out for awhile, saying to yourself, “I’ll catch up on my work later.” Don’t believe that.

4. You have to limit the time you spend with e-mails. Decide when is the best time for you to look at your e-mails and stick with it. Some people spend half an hour first thing in the morning, while others spend the first few hours of their work day, when they are still fresh and energetic, focusing on money-making ventures and then spend some time looking at e-mails later.

Whatever you decide to do, be sure to limit the time spent with e-mails. For instance, it’s best to belong to only one or two e-mail lists. Don’t let yourself think that you’ll miss out on some great tool or secret. If the tool or secret is that great, it will be talked about by everyone.

5. Turn off the phone. So many times the phone will interrupt me when I’m deep in thought or in the middle of a big project. The phone rings and I completely lose my focus. When you are working, simply turn it off or have a family member in charge of answering the phone and taking messages.

The phone and e-mails are two of the biggest time-wasters for those who work at home.

6. Have a room set aside for your office. Some people try to work at the computer in the family room or kitchen. That’s not good. You need a room where you can close the door (unless you are home alone) and really focus.

7. Write up a schedule ahead of time. This schedule needs to have blocks of time for different activities. Perhaps one hour for writing an article, 20 minutes for submitting the article to the article directories, half an hour for posting to your blog, and so on. You need to be able to look at a schedule and see what needs to be done that day, and then stick to it.

8. Take a break every two hours or as often as you need. Sometimes when working in front of a computer time slips away. Before you know it you’ve been sitting there for 5 hours and you’re getting kind of sore. That’s not good for you.

Every few minutes look out a window at something distant to exercise your eyes. Every hour or two (whatever time frame works best for you) get up and stretch.

9. Limit the time you spend surfing the Internet. If you need to do research or want to find a video to put in your post for that day, limit the amount of time spent searching. I have a blog about dogs and it is incredibly easy to spend an hour or two watching dog videos on YouTube when searching for just the right one for my site. Waste of time.

Set a timer and limit the amount of time you devote to this task.

10. This isn’t legal advice, but if you are self-employed and working at home in the United States you need to form an LLC. The sooner the better. If you don’t have a lawyer, ask around for one or check out LegalZoom.com. Get started today to form an LLC.

11. I had to add this one. You can’t be a procrastinator. To work at home you need to overcome any tendency for procrastination and get the work done now that needs to be done.

Every internet marketer I know says the way to succeed is to take ACTION. Get that domain registered. Choose a hosting company and set up an account. Get your blog started. Take action now. Don’t put it off any longer.

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