A lot of people dream of owning their own home-based business. They dream of setting their own hours, working when they want to work and with whom. The reality is that very few of these people ever take the time to ensure that they have the right skill set – the right tools – to make the leap to a home-based enterprise.

The first major pitfall that most new home-based business owners face is a lack of scheduling discipline. They just don’t plan out their work days. This can cause problems in two ways, under-working and overworking.

Let’s look at the first one, “under-working.” It’s very easy to sit at home, on the ol’ PC surfing the web. You might intend on working on your new website or putting up auctions on eBay, but, before you know it, you’ve spent the entire day reading email and surfing for the latest news and gossip. Sure, you were online and you were doing something, but the things you were doing are not the things that will put a dime in your bank account.

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Many Internet businesses are open 24 hours a day. Some Internet businesses are closed 24 hours a day. In your mind you should determine what time of day you open for business!

Part of this will be determined by the type of Internet business you have. Of course the Internet never sleeps so you have the opportunity to be conducting business nonstop around the clock.

Some businesses require more of a hands on approach. Businesses that require you to personally contact your prospects and customers come to mind.

However many Internet marketers really never have set business hours so it makes it hard for them to conduct business. If you have the type of business where people need to be in contact with you, you should establish set office hours and publish those where people can find them.

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