You made the commitment to start a home business. You researched your market and decided on the product or service that was right for you to promote. You established your home office (no small feat). Now the time is here to make things happen. However, nothing IS happening. Because….
Home is refusing to let you have a business.
You know what I mean.
There’s laundry to do. A dirty kitchen beckons. A shopping list that must be taken care of…TODAY.
Moreover, that’s not the half of it, is it?
You probably have a family, too. Human beings who genuinely like being with you. Little (and big) creatures who want to talk with you…NOW. Maybe you even have…preschoolers! (I understand. I also have a family!)
Frankly, this is why you came home to work. To be there.
Only work is not working. Because you’re not working!
Enough!
You’ve read all the articles on being self-disciplined and know the importance of using initiative and time management in order to be successful in your home business. However, from a practical standpoint, what do those characteristics mean when you’re not in a structured office environment?
Let’s look at some real world options from the standpoint of a parent with preschoolers at home with her or him all day. This is one of the toughest scenarios in working from home. Just remember that it’s all about using the tools at your disposal to benefit your own situation.
*Self-discipline.
In order to make yourself do what you need to do when you need to do it, you have to know what motivates you. Find your own personal carrot and dangle it continuously in front of yourself. Once your business starts making money that can be a helpful motivator, but until then get creative. Set goals and when you complete them, reward yourself. A facial, a lunch out with friends, a movie with the kids, a day off to golf. After a while, you will instill new habits in yourself and getting down to work will get easier and require less outside motivation.
*Initiative.
Initiative is closely tied with self-discipline. Think of it as the starter switch on your activity. You may have to push that starter switch a LOT at first. Keep excited about your goals. Have lots of support material to turn to in an instant. Use positive quotes screen savers. Daily emails from your favorite motivational/business speaker. A book of devotionals to calm your spirit and put you back on track. Audio tapes to listen to while driving. Pictures of your goals taped to your computer. Immerse your environment in a can-do attitude and you will naturally want to come along for the ride.
*Time management.
You’ve decided you need to work on your business eight hours a day. So, you start with naptime or quiet time. There’s two hours. You arrange a work area next to your desk for the kids to do their ‘work’ on, too. That is successful for a total of one hour a day (although not always in one block. Working at home means being flexible). You allow one hour of TV or video a day. You can put in two hours after the kids go to bed at night.
Now get creative.
Arrange a co-op with other work-at-home parents. One morning a week you take turns holding a play-date or a ‘preschool’ at each of your homes. Say you have seven families. You would host the preschool once every seven weeks. The rest of the time the kids would be thoroughly enjoying themselves with other friends. This arrangement can net you three hours each week (except the week you host, of course).
Put together a bag of business-related items that you can work on when you’re waiting in the doctor’s office. Sitting at the park. Waiting for your toddler to finish his snack. You get the idea. Portable tasks like stuffing envelopes. Stamping brochures. Proofreading copy. Sticking business cards on magnets. Etc., etc. You’ll probably pick up two to five hours a week doing this.
Do you have older kids or neighbor kids who could baby-sit for one hour after school? Or make a deal with your spouse; one evening a week he or she is in charge of the kids so you can work on the business. In return, you give him or her another evening TOTALLY off. Alternatively, get up one hour earlier each morning. Or, schedule a 15-minute ‘helping’ time 4 times a day. Compile a list of small jobs even the littlest one can work on by themselves. Picking up toys, folding towels, rearranging the plastics drawer, gathering all the trash in the house. You get the idea.
There it is. An 8-hour workday. It may not be 8-5, but if we wanted that, we could work outside the home!
A lot of us may have decided that working from home is BETTER for us, but that doesn’t mean it’s EASIER for us. In some ways, mixing business with a home life is the most complex of choices. It’s up to us to make it work. For everyone in the family.
Colleen Langenfeld works from home providing useful resources for personal or business use. Visit her site at http://www.paintedgold.com Grow your ezine subscriber list for FREE! http://www.subscriptionrocket.com/cgi-bin/r.cgi?r=1844
