When you are transitioning out of your office job and into working from home full-time, one of the most important things you will need to do is to strategically map out your plan of action.

Your plan of action will empower you to know exactly what it is that you need to focus on during your transition, and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks when you’re preparing to be your own boss. Typically, I recommend my students make the transition out of their day jobs and into working from home somewhere within 3 to 6 months, depending on where they’re at right now with their business.

So: how do you go about actually putting together your personal timeline of action so that you can effectively implement it?

Well, these 4 tips are going to help you out with that:

Tip #1: Consider how much experience you have with the service you will offer in your business.

This is important, because depending on how much experience you already have, it’s going to factor into what you should best spend your time focusing on during the transition phase.

For example, if you have several years worth of experience in your field and you have a diploma in the skill, you will spend a lot more of your time over the coming weeks on setting up your business plan and marketing your business.

However, if you are brand-new to this skill, you will need to make sure you are also spending your time building up your skill, getting experience with it, and perhaps taking some professional development. In that case, you might want to look at more of a 6-month timeline of action rather than a 3-month model.

Take the quiz to find out whether you’re ready yet to quit your 9 to 5 job.

Tip #2: Review how many clients you have worked with in the past (or how many you are currently working with).

This will enable you to look at what you need to work on the most. If you have a list of clients you’ve worked with in the past and you are currently working with multiple clients, but you are still uncomfortable about working from home full-time, then you might want to increase your rates, work on building up your confidence, and/or set up systems in place to more effectively work from home and manage your time productively.

On the other hand, if you have only worked with a couple clients or none at all, in that case doing more marketing and networking is going to be important for you.

Tip #3: Consider your experience both in working from home AND in managing a business.

If you have never done either before, that’s okay! You don’t need a business degree to manage your successful home-based business.

However, if you have NO experience in business, then you will need to do some research into that. You will also want to spend more time carefully planning out your plan of action for how you are going to manage yourself and work at home productively.

Tip #4: Be honest about how much time you can realistically devote to your business each week while you’re still working at your 9 to 5 job.

Everyone’s situation is going to be different. Focus on what’s right for YOU, not what everybody else is doing! Be realistic about what your workload is like and what kind of timeframe makes sense, given your personal circumstances.

When you know how many hours every week you can spend preparing to work from home full-time, you will have a much better idea of which tasks to focus on every step along the way, and you will be able to more clearly identify when exactly YOU will be ready to start working from home full-time.

Want to quit your day job and start working from home full-time within the next few months?

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Sagan Morrow is a small business strategist and blogger at SaganMorrow.com. She teaches freelancers actionable strategies for building your successful, profitable home-based business… WITHOUT the overwhelm.