There are many advantages to the choice to work at home. Some are obvious:



* No boss to tell you what to do,

* You set your own hours,

* Work when you want,

* Take time off when you want,

* Dress as you please,

* And gain certain tax advantages - to name just a few benefits.

There are some other considerations that you should review before you embark on this course of action - some questions you need to answer honestly:

* Do you have a quiet home office in which to work?

* Can you teach your spouse and children to let you work undisturbed?

* Do you have a well-defined business plan of action - so you always know what to do next?

* Are you a self-starter - ready to do what it takes without supervision?

* And, most importantly, do you have the self-discipline it takes to set a schedule and stick to it in spite of all the temptations, distractions, and interruptions that will certainly come your way?

Unless you can answer "yes" to these questions - ALL of them, you should consider NOT making this choice - really. These are absolute musts for the vast majority of people who actually choose to work this way.

Ask yourself, too: Is your social life closely connected to your job? If so, will you miss it when you work alone? Are you really ready to make this sacrifice?

Another consideration, when contemplating working at home, is the manner in which you like to learn. Do you prefer attending lectures, going to seminars, reading books, listening to tapes, hands-on trial and error, or personal tutelage?

Do you have the experience of becoming really good at a field that is new to you, without having it spoon-fed to you? If not, you may require a personal tutor to teach you the process of building an online business. Such tutors are available, but they aren't cheap.

On the other hand, there are some online resources available to you that provide such training - if you can learn from a video or from written instructions.

How are you at following directions to assemble furniture or toys, or to fix a household appliance, or at following a recipe to cook a meal?

If you find such tasks manageable, you should be able to build a good commercial website. It takes work - quite a bit of work, actually - but the tasks are straight-forward and easy to learn.

So what is your decision? Are you really ready to go ahead and build an Internet-based business? If so, let's move on and consider what your work at home approach will be.