Many people dream of starting their own small businesses, and in truth, there’s very little to stop you from taking steps to turn those dreams into a reality — at least in the form of an initial side-hustle.

What does often happen, though, is that people are put off from pursuing their small business dreams, specifically because they struggle to wrap their heads around the practical complexities of the process. As the saying goes, “perfect is the enemy of good”, and our own natural perfectionist tendencies — something which entrepreneurs, in particular, often have in abundance — can oftentimes prevent us from getting started.

Beginning to make your small business dream a reality might well be an achievable goal for you in the short term. Here are some suggestions for getting started.

Identify a place for the storage of any necessary equipment, and consider storage standards

Any business which isn’t purely knowledge or tech-based, will tend to involve selling some physical product or other. The obvious issue that presents itself here is the need to store that merchandise somewhere, before sending it off to whichever lucky soul made the wise purchase.

Your home — even if you live in a flat — can often be used to accommodate the storage of a lot more product than you might at first have thought. The key thing is identifying areas where you can, realistically, store things, then figuring out the ideal storage solution, and all the while, keeping in mind any standards or legislation that might apply.

If you work in the food industry, for example, things like molasses storage tanks can be very helpful, but you will also need to be extremely careful to abide by all the food safety legislation that applies to your region.

For less “sensitive” material, garages can work wonders, and storage crates can turn half of your living room into a mini-warehouse zone.

Clearly define your “office area” and don’t let anything interfere with it

To make it as a small business owner, it’s very much in your interest to keep a clear and reasonable division between your professional and private lives.

If you blur the lines too much, you’ll eventually find it hard to focus, and will be much more likely to experience a burnout and lose motivation for your chosen career path, too.

Clearly defining an “office” area where you will handle all of the logistics and “white collar” elements of your work is a great way at creating this degree of distance.

This “office area” can be an actual office, or it can be a desk in the corner of your living room. But try to restrict its function to work, specifically.

Adopt and hone a strict “will-directed” ethos during business hours

The ancient Greek philosophers had a lot of interesting ideas, but one of the most interesting was perhaps the idea of the “will” being the ruling centre of the person, mediating between both ideals and aspirations, and “animal” needs like hunger and thirst.

To get your small business off the ground, you will need to work hard, including at times when you really don’t feel like it.

The key to being successful in this regard is to adopt a strict “will-directed” ethos during business hours.

That is, if you’re feeling sleepy, tell yourself “my body is sleepy, not my will” and grind on. Choose to keep going until it’s time for a break or time to clock off.