Make Money Online by Building Yourself a Man Cave

Firstly I want to thank everyone for your amazing comments on my last post. I haven’t replied to them, but believe me, each and every one means a lot to me. I really mean that! You guys and gals are great.

So as you know, I am kinda taking some time off. I have only been at my computer maybe an hour a day (at most!). One thing I must say… I am quite amazes with how well things operate even though I have reduced my time at my computer by 90%. In that ONE hour I have been spending at my computer I check and response to email, check my membership site and answer questions / reply where necessary, and check my daily income level. After that… I am done!

To be honest, this has been wonderful! How can I operate and maintain my various projects while only being at my computer for an hour? Who knows, but I am not questioning it. But I can tell you this… it’s pretty cool and there is A LOT that can be learned from this. Granted, when things get back to normal, cutting back to an hour a day I believe is too extreme, eventually things would fall apart.

Although, seeing how well things are going at 1 hour per day and comparing the results to when I’d spend maybe 10 hours a day shows me that I am not doing very good with managing my time behind the computer. With that said, I think a comfortable balance should be around 3 hours per day. And you know what… I don’t know anyone who would complain about having to work 3 hours a day while generating a very wealthy full time income.

That is 15 hours a week, or two 8 hour days + an hour (with ZERO TRAVEL TIME). It’s cake… believe me. My focus is eliminating all the BS out of my day. Which to be quite honest, reflecting on how I have been working, the math seems to add up. Typically, I seriously only work about 3 hours a day, the other 5+, 6+, 7+ 8+ hours in that day is total junk. The additional hours are useless and they are hours that I could be investing into other forms of productivity.

And that is where my new home office kicks in. Formally, I had a room and granted, in order to get to that room, I’d have to trip over kid toys (once even rolled my ankle on a baseball bat) and be subjected to normal household noises (a.k.a. kids screaming at each other, mom trying to control the madness, loud TVs, loud music, doors slamming here and there, washer and drying tumbling, buzz buzzers buzzing, and making normal clothes washing and drying noises, toilets flushing, bathroom doors opening and closing, showers running, sneezing, coughing, laughing, crying kids…. sneezing, coughing laughing, screeching babies… (we have four kids LOL, our house is a zoo).

So needless to say, one of the biggest challenges for me up to this stage of the game is being able to concentrate on my work. My work environment — yes… while working at home — has not been the best environment for working. And that is one thing that you should consider too. So many expert bloggers always talk about “make money online doing this…” and “make money online doing that…” But I don’t think one has ever wrote a post stressing the importance of having a good environment to work in. Take it from me, it is very important.

Indeed, I love working from home, it is the greatest thing in the world. However, you have to set a boundary… you have to set a something in place that allows you to separate yourself from your home while you are working. Granted, this all started for me, because I had to give up my room so that our youngest baby could have it. But after I made the decision to convert my garage into a home office, I totally saw how huge of an opportunity this was for me. From that moment, my floor plan of the entire garage had the soul and selfish purpose of my work in mind, over and beyond anything else. Why? Because my family has a wonderful house to live in. Now, I need to build something for myself that allows me to work in an environment with much less stress. 

The entire project once complete will add another bedroom, a 3rd full bathroom, a second laundry room and of course… my brand new home office suite. The office itself is only accessible through the outside of my home. Meaning, when I wake up, I’ll take a shower, eat a meal, get dressed and physically walk to work. Granted, it’s only a few feet… but still I have to physically LEAVE my house in order to get to work. A second thing is that when I drafted the floor plan, I put the office in the very back and also it is (or will be once done) encased in insulated walls. What does that mean? Well… it means that my family can be as loud and noisy as they want in the house, and I won’t hear a thing. The only noise I will hear will be my computers running, or any noise I generate myself (Chili comes to mind… LOL)

I am many things… but one thing I am NOT is tolerate of distractions. I am SO VERY particular about noise. Needless to say, and especially within the last year, I have subjected my entire family to me being very irritable, frustrated, and short tempered. And all this is due to my inability to perform my job at a level in which I know I can. Granted, everything I do gets done each day. However, when I lose focus on something, it takes time to get back to where I left off. I am very confident in my abilities; however my frustrations occur when I can’t complete tasks as quickly as I know I can if the environment was different. What happens is I usually play online hearts, or something stupid, because I can’t work.

The new home office is the key. The new home office is the center to my system. And, to be honest, in many ways, my new home office is (or will be) the skeleton that maintain my sanity! LOL!!!! You think I am joking???

Anyway, once its completed and I have moved in, I will literally be working around 3 to 4 hours a day. From there, I am OUT!!! and doing the things I enjoy most with my family and friends. If you can’t afford to add-on or expand your house, believe me I feel your pain. However, you SHOULD do something if your work environment isn’t suitable. You should travel to your local library and work, travel to bookstore in the mall that has public WIFI. Most places with free access are places that are quiet, or at least at a normal conversation level. If your home is noisy with kids screaming their heads off, you need to get away. And it’s no different than working a regular 9 – 5. Only difference is that you work for yourself rather than for some ass head of a boss.

Here are some pics of my home office after the flooring was laid.

This is door formally granted access from the outside into my garage. This will be the only way to access my home office. The remainder of the garage will be opened up to the existing house and converted into an additional bedroom, bathroom and even a second laundry room (two parents and four kids go through a lot of clothes).

Entering into the office you’ll walk down a 7 ft hallway. The entire office is raise up 3 1/2 feet off ground level on concrete block. To the right of the hallway is where the laundry room will go (at ground level) The 6in concrete block coupled with insulated walls will eliminate any and all noise created by the machines in the laundry room.

Once in the office the room itself is approximately 11 ft x 11 foot. Probably kind of small to some standards, but plenty of room for me, and also any bigger would take away from the size of our new bedroom and bathroom on the opposite side of the garage. The office has a double window facing east and a single window facing south.

On the right edge of the pic (next to the 12pk bud light.. sorry LOL!!!) you’ll see the edge of the wall. Down below at ground level is where the bedroom located. Once again, the office is silenced from noises from the bedroom because the bedroom is at ground level and isolated. Also, where the Bud Light is located is where my little break area will be located (countertop, with a small fridge, microwave, coffee maker, and cabinets for various consumable items) some might call this a wet bar (hehe…)

This picture gives you a side view of the hallway entering into my office. In this picture you’ll see the hot water heater. It will be relocated about 4 feet closer and directly behind it will be the laundry room. The laundry room is smaller and will have bi fold door entry. The space in between the laundry room and the office is a 4 foot wide hallway which allows you access from the main house to the laundry room.

This shot I am standing where the bedroom will be. The cut out on the left is where the bedroom closet will be. Directly to the right of the closet is where the break area of the office is located. If you look, you’ll see an orange level in the corner of the office. That is where my brand new L-Desk with Hutch will go. In the corner where the nail gun is at is where I will have a corner table set up with a flat screen set up for working with customers locally in my home town.

The walls are going up tomorrow and the rest should fly by pretty quickly. One of my favorite things about this project is I get to pick where all the outlets, RJ-12, RJ-45, coaxial and fiber optic lines go. (I have two Internet connections coming into my home. One is provided to me by Charter Communications @ 16,000 kbps download 6,000 kbps upload speed.

The other is provided to my by CDE Lightband (my electric company) which is fiber optic @ 10,000 kbps download and a matching 10,000 kbps upload. As the slogan goes for my electric company, “I am connected!” The reason why I have two connections coming into my house is because I can’t afford to be offline. In fact, if both of those connections fail, I can use my Blackberry and connect to it at about 500 kbps.

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