Difficulty rating: Easy

Step one:
The very first thing that you are going to need to do is to set up a home office. In the home office you are going to want to make sure that you have everything that you are going to need for an entire days work. You are also going to want to make sure that the home office is in a space that will not allow for distractions and somewhere that is away from the main activity of the house.

Step two:
The next thing that you are going to want to do is to review your business plan to see what you have written down for the hours you plan on working each day. If you haven't written a business plan then you are going to need to determine how many hours a day you are going to work and then put that in writing.

Step three:
After determining how many hours you are going to work each day you are going to want to figure out what hours you are going to work each day. For example are you going to work 8 to 5 with an hour lunch, or are you going to work part time.

Step four:
Now that you know how many hours a day you are going to work, what days of the week you are going to work, and what hours you are going to be working you are ready to move onto the next step. The next thing that you are going to need to do is to stick to your hours; this is similar to leaving the office. What this means is that as soon as you have worked your eight hours you are going to need to get up and walk away from your home office, no matter how tempting it might be to continue working. After you are done for the day you need to shut off your computer and close your office door and focus on your family. This doesn't mean that you can't work overtime sometimes, but like at a regular office you want to work overtime as little as possible.

Step five:
Now that you have succeeded from separating your business and home life physically you are going to also need to take a few extra steps to keep your business and home life separate financially. This is important because it will make sure that your finances can not be intermixed which could led to complications down the line.

Step six:
The first thing that you are going to need to do to separate your business and personal finances is to open up two separate checking accounts. But even though you have two separate accounts you are still going to need to go a few steps further and make sure that you never use one account for the other purpose. What this means is that you can't use your business account to pay your personal bills.

Step seven:
You are also going to want to make sure that you have a separate credit card for your home business if you plan on using credit cards for your business expenses. If you don't have credit for your business yet then you can use a personal credit card, but what you want to keep in mind is that when using that credit card only use it for business purposes and pay for it with your business checking account. Don't ever use it for personal needs.