The trend of moms working from home to be near their children has grown in the last couple of years. Now that they have found jobs or businesses to run, they’re starting to realize that working from home is not as easy as they thought it would be. The work they do is hard to separate form their personal lives, which makes it hard to schedule time for work responsibilities and home duties.
The workspace these moms use to do their jobs at ends up being a part of their household, so that makes dividing work and home life even more difficult to do — and one of the motivating reasons for creating my Balancing Work and Family guide. Imagine that your office is a part of the dining room, which also happens to be the room where you eat your meals as a family. How easy is it going to be for you to leave your work life to be with your family when the office is 5 feet away from the dinner table?
The realities of dividing work and personal life can get smudged for work at home moms. When that happens, one’s stress level is sure to rise, which could jeopardize one’s sanity. To prevent your sanity from leaving, you should find ways to ensure that separation takes place between your job/business and your family life.
Assess the current situation. Try to find an area, within your home, to have your office so that it won’t interfere with your family life. The home office needs a room with a door where you can be apart from the rest of the house. A den or a garage can be converted into office space that is exclusive to your business. Some people have resorted to placing their office in the laundry room, just because it has a door! When that is not an option, set up shop in your bedroom to keep it away from the family areas.
Organization is the next step. A messy desk can be a huge distraction when trying to work. Everything needs to have its place. If you worked in an office, your boss would not stand for a messy work space. There’s no difference when you’re office is at home and not at the worksite.
Use inexpensive organizing items, such as baskets with separate compartments to help organize the odds and ends on your desk. You can keep rubber stamps, letters, invoices, pens, pencils, and the like in here. Organization makes finding things much easier, which results in a more relaxed work day.
Keep your business phone separate from the family phone line. When using the same line, you run the risk of your children answering business calls or picking up the phone during a conference call. This causes your professionalism to fly right out the window and takes your customers or employers along with it.
The same goes for the computer. It’s best to keep your business computer separate from what the other family members use, but budgets don’t always allow for this. In that case, make sure that the business/job files and documents can’t be easily accessed by anyone but you. This will help prevent some of the stress that could be brought on by family members stumbling on a client’s important document and accidentally deleting them.
Be sure to use calendars or planners as they are very helpful when trying to keep track of business appointments or deadlines and family appointments. This will lessen the stress of setting up family appointments when you’ve forgotten about business deadlines you have.
Consider hiring a sitter on days you have a lot of work to do. Being a work at home mom gives you the benefit of controlling your own schedule. Having a sitter keeps the kids away from your office and gives you quiet time to focus on your work and gives your kids a chance to have fun without you feeling too guilty.
Mixing business with family in the home setting can be a major source of stress. Keeping the business side of your life organized and separate is crucial to success in keeping your stress levels down and your sanity intact.
==================================================== Get More Help:
Working at home can be extremely rewarding, but it’s challenging. Get the help you need with Real Life Guidance to Balancing Work and Family. It’s your practical guide to tracking your time, setting priorities, learning to say no and achieving that balance you strive for.
Time is one of the most important resources that we have. Time is one thing that you can’t swap, borrow or purchase. We are all given the same 24 hours to each day. Even with all of our modern day time-saving conveniences such as e-mail, fax machines, microwaves, and dish washers, there is no way to get more hours into your day. It is up to each of us to make the very best use of our time since we can’t get it back.
Here are some time saving tips that you can use to optimize and free up your precious time:
Double Up. One way to maximize your time is to double it up. Try exercising while vacuuming or while watching TV. While you are talking to your children, use that time to go through their back packs and ask them about their day. During your down time chats with your girlfriend on the phone, why not clip coupons or browse through the sales paper.
Make Use of Services Available To You. Take advantage of pick-up and delivery services offered by neighborhood stores, dry cleaners, and restaurants. One wonderful service to look into would be to hiring a teenager or an errand service to run certain errands for you.
Schedule Like Tasks at the Same Time. Instead of sitting in front of your computer all day returning e-mails as they arrive, try to return all e-mails during the same block of time. Set aside an hour or so to return multiple e-mails as opposed to doing it sporadically all day.
Combine Your Outdoor Errands. When you are out grocery shopping also pick up your needed prescriptions, run to the post office, and fill up your gas tank. By doing this you will not have to leave the house 3 or 4 times in the same day.
Organize Your Home. We spend so much time looking for things, trying to re-create things that have been lost, and cleaning up clutter. Create a spot in your home where you keep, record, and pay your bills, and store your stamps, envelopes, and other things that you use frequently. Don’t forget about your children. How many minutes or hours a day do you spend looking for shoes, socks, toys, or that favorite stuffed animal? Arrange things so that your children can take care of some of their everyday needs. Try using shoe racks that hang on the closet door so that your children can hang up their shoes. Use clear storage containers for small toys and a desk for storing all of the arts and crafts supplies.
Make Use Of Small Bits of Time. Take care of small projects during waiting periods. For example, if you find yourself waiting in the doctors office, why not use that time to plan and write out your grocery list or “To Do” list. If you use public transportation use that time to read those magazines that have been piling up.
Plan Ahead. We can’t always foresee what will be needed but we can be prepared for certain things. Pick and set out your children’s clothes the night before. When you are cooking dinner, double the recipe and freeze half of it to be used for a meal in the upcoming weeks. Before you go to bed, create a short list of the things that you have to do the next day.
Be sure to allow for some flexibility in your schedule. If the sun starts shining on what you thought was going to be a rainy day, grab those children and head to the park or take an impromptu trip to the zoo! Just make sure to take care of yourself and be wise about your time.
Aurelia Williams, certified Personal Life Coach and owner of Real Life Coaching and author of the Journey to Joy ebook. Learn to quit running yourself ragged: Take the Journey to Joy instead.
Want to work at home? Many of us often forget about the skills we already have (but may not realize) when considering a home-based vocation. I hope you’ll get some valuable ideas from this article.
Do you realize that most local brick and mortar business owners feel lost and overwhelmed by the idea of marketing themselves on the internet? It’s true.
As a long time internet marketer, I have a good understanding of how the web works. I can create a website that attracts relevant traffic and makes a profit. I realized a few years ago that I could take this knowledge and apply it to serving a local market -– offering my services as a website creator and marketer.
There’s no lack of providers out there offering to help the local business owner take their business online, but the sheer volume of options is confusing and the price point is often far outside of the small business budget. So when I opened my doors to provide affordable services from a local source, I found clients who were hungry for what I had to offer.
I used the knowledge I have about building a simple website to set up a WordPress blog for a local consignment shop. We publish pictures of some of her new products and pipe the RSS Feed into a Facebook fan page. These are just some simple promotion strategies that come as easy as pie to you and me –- but to her, it was like magic!
Imagine her delight when a lady walked into her shop with overflowing bags of great product to consign, saying “I found you on the internet and decided to bring my things in!” The cool part? The lady drove almost an HOUR to get to her shop -– passing many other similar stores along the way.
My client is now totally sold on the power of the internet to accomplish her marketing goals.
Before she met me, she was scared stiff to even think about doing something online. Most local small business are and that’s why they need YOU!
When you focus on a local business community, you have home field advantage. If you’re good at what you do and deliver real world results, word of mouth travels fast among these business owners who regular network together.
A phone call came in to my office a few weeks ago. So and so had mentioned me to so and so and now another so and so wanted to meet to discuss a project. I setup a time and looked forward to learning about their needs. I admit my jaw dropped a tiny bit when I learned the client was a famous food brand that has its home here in northern Michigan. (Of course I quickly hid my surprise and pretended that I consulted on major brands every day of the week.
When local people ask me what I do, I say that I do web design and consulting. If the conversation progresses, I go on to tell them about how I help businesses develop powerful, interactive websites with simple tools that help them attract more clients and customers.
It all sounds very professional, right? And of course it is -– but the reality is that I work from my home, usually in my slippers. I rarely meet clients face to face and I choose my own work hours. I love what I do and thoroughly enjoy seeing how my skills benefit my clients.
If you have even some of the skills that I do: If you understand how search engines work, how to create a website with WordPress, how to set up a simple mailing list, a Twitter account and a Facebook page; you could be running your own consulting business.
Even if you lack some of these skills, if you delegate well and enjoy serving as a project manager, you can outsource the work that falls outside of your expertise and still provide all of the necessary services to your clients.
The needs exists. Local business owners know they should be taking advantage of the internet. They just need you to show them how to make it happen.
==================================================== Kelly McCausey shows you step by step how to create, launch and grow a local business consulting business at Become a Blog Consultant.
Whether you’re a work at home mom or have just batted the idea around, you’ll really benefit from listening to other WAHMs talk about what they do.
Yesterday, I finally purchased my season pass to the Hot Seminar Series. In this series of eight webinars, various work-at-home moms graciously give us a glimpse into their lives and explain just how they do what they do.
I’ll admit I’m a really bad procrastinator, and was worried — because I’d waited so long — that I’d pretty much missed out on my chance to get a season pass. (The seminar series began in June.) Not so…by purchasing my season pass now, I still gained access to the MP3 audio files of the previous webinars. (If you don’t have an iPod or other MP3 player, you can listen right from your computer once you’ve downloaded the files.)
Being a web designer/developer myself (and learning more every day), the first webinar I was interested in listening to was, naturally, Kelly McCausey’s interview with Lynette Chandler. Lynette is a WordPress tech/designer who also develops WordPress plug-ins. To do what Lynette does means I’ll have to ramp up some of my skills (or outsource to people who do have those skills, which was a great point the ladies brought up), but I was so inspired by both of them (Kelly is also a website designer).
I hope you’ll spend the small amount necessary to get your season pass, too. It’s only $10 (hello…$10!!!), and what’s that? Less than three lattes at Starbucks. It’s a small investment that can put you on the road to earning thousands.
Perhaps you’ll be interested in some of the other topics, like being a virtual assistant (this was last night’s topic, of which the audio is already available), freelance writing and paid blogging, information marketing, selling on eBay (yes, that is still a viable work-at-home option!)…and the list goes on.
Check it out yourself! You probably won’t miss the $10, but if you don’t get your season pass, you’ll be missing out on much, much more. You won’t regret it.
See you there!
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If you look close enough, there are many parallels in life. For example, I’ve dealt with a condition called fibromyalgia for years. If I eat the wrong things or work on my knees a little too long in the garden, I can literally feel the muscles in my body freezing up like the Tin Man did in The Wizard of Oz.
“Oil,” the Tin Man tried to tell Dorothy, “I need oil.”
“Massage,” I whine to my husband, “I need a massage.”
Let’s take that example and parallel it with our work-at-home careers. I can think of several things that can get “rusty”:
Skills
Knowledge
Business relationships
Personal relationships (family and friends)
Let’s take a quick look at each of these, and the oil needed to keep them “working.”
Rusty Skills: We’ve got to keep our skills up. By trade, I’m a web designer/developer. I realized this morning, however, that my skills had gotten a bit rusty over the past couple of months. I’d forgotten how to write some very simple snippets of code. Anyone who’s a designer or developer knows that if you don’t keep refreshing your memory regarding what you already know, your career will die a slow and painful death.
The Oil: It’s been a couple of months since I last built a web site, but I’m working this weekend on revamping an old site of mine. It was one of the first sites I’d ever built, and oh, wow — is the coding pathetic or what! I’ll be rebuilding it from the ground up: an excellent exercise to refresh and build on my skills. What can you do to refresh your skills?
Rusty Knowledge: Our world is constantly changing. If you work at home, chances are you work online. Talk about something that continually morphs — that’s the Internet! Not keeping up on the latest trends is a guaranteed way to get left in the dust of your competitors. For me, not keeping up on the latest code releases is a bad, bad idea.
The Oil: To succeed online, you must promote your business. To do this, you need to keep up on all the latest social networking sites and strategies. Be careful, though: Everyone and their brother wants to sell you this program or that to teach you how to market yourself. Please…be wise, be shrewd, and tread carefully. I lost track of how many of my Twitter followers lately have sent me direct messages in an attempt to sell me a program that teaches how to get “targeted Twitter traffic.” What?? Do a little research on your own…there’s plenty of free information out there, and you’ll get to keep that dough in your pocket. (Free tip: Sign up at — and use — Twellow, the “Twitter Yellow Pages.”) A good rule of thumb that I’ve heard repeated again and again: If it sounds to good to be true, IT IS.
Social networking aside, do some brainstorming on paper to discover ways you can increase your knowledge, and thereby really boost your career. Should you take a class? Do some online tutorials? Read (current) books by successful people in your line of work? Do this exercise and you’ll be miles ahead of most people in your field.
Rusty Business Relationships: You met so-and-so at a mixer last year, and really would like to utilize her services now. Doggone it, though — you can’t remember her name. You think you got her email address, but lost the napkin it was written on. If you’d stayed in contact, you might have been able to get a good deal on such-and-such now. You win some, you lose some, right?
The Oil: As soon as you make a new business contact, record their information in your online address book. As a back-up, also write it in a notebook that you keep just for that reason, or print out a hard copy of your online contacts. If your business contacts are people you met on Facebook (for example), comment on their updates once in a while. Same thing if you know them on Twitter. Take note: This is for the purpose of building relationships and, possibly, friendships. Never spam your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. (Though you can, of course, mention new blog posts, product reviews, etc. — just don’t forget to be personal first and foremost.)
Rusty Personal Relationships: It’s easy to get so caught up in our work that our personal relationships begin to suffer. I’ve been known to work on a project for an entire day before realizing what time it was. And then I feel horrible, of course, because I’d spent little or no quality time with my kids that day. It can be the same with our friendships: If we can’t remember the last time we saw our friends socially, we know we’re working too hard.
The Oil: Make sure you know what your priorities are. List them on paper and post the list above your desk — or wherever you’ll see it most often. Above your desk is an excellent place to keep it: It will remind you while you’re working that you need to stop for a while and tend to those priorities.
Also, make friends with your timer. Your timer will help you fit as much into your day as possible. You’ll be able to care for your family, tend to your house (or make sure the kids are doing their chores), and get some serious work done on your latest project. Some things really don’t take as long as we think. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in 15 minute bursts.
I hope this has been helpful for you today. If you also have strategies to prevent yourself from becoming rusty in the various areas of your life, please share!
You’ve just started a new blog, you’re posting every day, and you’re having a great time! You’ve conquered the world of blogging! Then it happens — the first week is over, and you’re thinking you’re maybe not loving this blogging business so much.
That’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but when it comes to writing, a funny little thing called burnout happens…and it happens to almost everyone. But don’t despair — there are a few things you can do when the honeymoon feelings start to wane:
Make sure you’re writing about what you know. If you’re having to do a ton of research just to write a blog post, other ventures are going to start to look more interesting. Much more interesting. But if you know you know what you know, the words will flow freely from your noggin right down to your fingertips. And when that happens, you’re going to enjoy posting about your subject a whole lot more.
Spend one or two days a week marathon writing. This works really well for a lot of bloggers. Obviously, if you’re blogging about current events, you can’t do that, but if your topic allows it, give it a try. You can actually knock out a week’s worth of posts in just a few hours this way. If your blog host has a scheduling capability like WordPress does, that will make your job even easier. You can write and schedule the following week’s posts all on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
The scheduling function also works well if you’re importing posts from one of your old blogs or are wanting to use articles you’ve written in the past.
DRAWING A BLANK
You know it’s bound to happen: The day will come when you will have absolutely no idea what to write about. Here are a few idea getters:
Take a poll. Ask your readers, whether in a blog post or in an actual survey, what they think about a certain issue, or what really matters to them regarding (fill in the blank). This works very well because people like to give their opinions, as you’ll know if you’ve had a blog for any real length of time. If these people keep coming back to your blog, they obviously like you, so you might as well take advantage of that.
Go where the info is. Search through magazines, books, and the Internet to get ideas for your topic. Notice I said ideas. We’re not copying what’s been written — just getting those thinking juices flowing.
Get a guest blogger. Find someone who has a blog in the same genre as yours (preferably someone who writes well) who might like to sub for you once in a while. It’s a win-win situation: you’re able to provide something for your readers, you get a bit of a break, and your guest blogger will — hopefully — get more readers (because you will, of course, let her include a link to her blog in her bio at the end of the post).
Choose the right niche. Chances are pretty high, if you’re a work-at-home mom, that you already have a blog. If not, starting one can greatly increase your visibility in the online community and, eventually, your sales.
Before jumping in, the first thing you must do is decide on your niche. If you go into this thinking you’re just going to blog on anything and everything (you’re going to “go where the wind blows”), you’ll eventually blog about nothing.
Obviously, if you have a business, that’s what you blog about – that is your “niche.” But what if your niche is still fairly wide? Perhaps you’re a travelling veterinarian…are you going to blog about the care of animals in general? Narrow your niche. For example, cat lovers won’t want to read about the best toys for ferrets or how to get rid of mange in that puppy you just adopted. The narrower your niche, the more loyal your readers will be.
Hosted or Free? Even if you’re new to the blogosphere, you’ve probably heard about WordPress. What you may not know is that there is WordPress.com and then there’s WordPress.org. What’s the difference? The first is free (like Google’s Blogger), and the latter needs to be hosted, like a website, because…well, basically it is one.
If you’re just starting out, go with the free blogging option until you really know what you’re doing. I’m speaking from experience here. This blog is a WordPress.org blog, hosted on StartLogic.com, but other blogs I’ve had have been free. You don’t have to pay money for a blog in order to be successful (you can put Google Adsense on a free blog, and even fill up your blog with affiliate ads — though less is always more). However, you may want to move it all to a WordPress.org blog later, and there are a few reasons for this.
First of all, if the blog represents your business, it should look professional. If the blog looks amateurish, people will assume you may not know what you’re doing business-wise, either. (But if your blog is just for fun and not related to your work, who cares? Just have fun with it.)
Another reason is your URL. A URL that reads www.yoursite.com will gain more respect with your customers than www.yoursite.wordpress.com. For a personal blog, there’s nothing wrong with that last option (I have one of those, too), but the first looks better to potential customers and even to other businesses that may want to trade links with you.
Finally, a hosted blog gives you more freedom and options when it comes to customization. Don’t like the theme creator’s images? Put in your own. Want to use your own logo? You can easily do that on a hosted blog, where you will have access to the CSS and PHP files.
There are certain things to consider when — and if — you make the decision to move to a hosted blog (one you have to pay for, in other words):
You’ll need to select and purchase a domain name.
You’ll need to pay for a hosting service.
For even minimal editing of your blog, you really should have at least an understanding of HTML and how to copy and paste code into your site. If you go with WordPress.org, also knowing CSS (and hopefully PHP) is a real plus.
If you don’t know HTML, you may need to hire someone who does. It would be well worth your time, however, to take a few online tutorials to learn some HTML basics.
If your business is small, you can link a free blog to your site until you decide to “make the move.”
Think about layout. When it comes to blogs, you have a variety of layouts to choose from. You may decide on a one-, two-, or three-column layout, or even what’s known as a “magazine” layout.
A one-column layout is fine if you’re just updating family and friends on the new baby. But if you’re wanting to make money with your blog, you need some room to play. I personally prefer at least a three-column layout because there are more places to put ads, videos, and pieces of my mind that I don’t want disappearing at the bottom of the page in a regular post.
Magazine formats are primarily made up of various boxes that link to your posts and features and have a more splashy, modern feel. If you are prolific in your posting, have many different subtopics, or have various bloggers posting for you, a magazine layout might be the way to go. One exception to this is a site called Mashable.com. Mashable has various bloggers and uses a classic 2-column layout. But the feel of the site is more of the “wowza” magazine variety: very modern and “web 2.0.”
My number one frustration as a work-at-home mom is distraction. I can have the best intentions as far as what I want to accomplish, my planner can be utilized perfectly, and I can even have my “game on” (meaning my mind is sharp and raring to go).
But without fail, a family member will need me or want to talk. If I’m deep in thought about a project, the interruption is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my family and I love having them near. It’s not that they’re being disrespectful or don’t care that I need to work…I believe the real story is that I haven’t made the line in the sand quite clear enough.
It’s healthy — it really is — for the members of our families to learn to respect the times when we need to work without interruption. If we can’t complete a thought in our heads, we’re not going to be able to bring in any money, right? That said, we also need to make sure there’s a balance, and I’ll get to that in just a bit.
I’d like to share with you some tips that have helped me. Some I’ve learned from others, while some I’ve come up with out of sheer desperation.
1. Put on your headphones. You don’t have to really be listening to anything, just ignore whoever’s talking to you, snap your fingers to whatever rhythm you can think of, and bob your head up and down to the “music.”
Or really listen to something, if you can work with background music (or a podcast, etc.). I am, at this very moment, listening to my new favorite singer, Shawn Mullins.
2. Do you have an office or other designated room where you work? Hang up a sign that says, “Do not disturb.” Mary Engelbreit, author and illustrator, has a sign above her studio that reads, “No one gets in to see the wizard…no way, no how.”
3. Get a babysitter. If the babysitter keeps interrupting you, find another. If that doesn’t work, get off-site childcare for at least a few days a week.
4. Get off-site yourself. Go to Starbucks or the library (take those headphones with you, just in case). Wear sunglasses if you think you might be recognized. Dark sunglasses. And a hat.
5. Older children can keep younger ones preoccupied, at least for a little while. However, if you happen to have a clingy toddler who doesn’t want anyone but you…see #4.
6. If they still don’t get it, have a family meeting. Ignore the pouty faces and stick to your guns. But make it an “if, then” meeting. Tell your kids, “If I can work without interruption between (fill in the hours), I’ll play a board game with you (or take you to the park, etc.).”
7. Most importantly…give a little. Kids need their moms, husbands need their wives. Don’t be a work-a-holic, working for too many hours on end. Try to work for a set period each day and spend the rest with those you love…and who love you. Balance is key. If they feel like they’re getting enough time with you, they’ll be less likely to interrupt when you really need to work.
Time is one of the most important resources that we have. Time is one thing that you can’t swap, borrow or purchase. We are all given the same 24 hours to each day. Even with all of our modern day time-saving conveniences such as e-mail, fax machines, microwaves, and dish washers, there is no way to get more hours into your day. It is up to each of us to make the very best use of our time since we can’t get it back.
If you look close enough, there are many parallels in life. For example, I’ve dealt with a condition called fibromyalgia for years. If I eat the wrong things or work on my knees a little too long in the garden, I can literally feel the muscles in my body freezing up like the Tin Man did in The Wizard of Oz.
You’ve just started a new blog, you’re posting every day, and you’re having a great time! You’ve conquered the world of blogging! Then it happens — the first week is over, and you’re thinking you’re maybe not loving this blogging business so much.
My number one frustration as a work-at-home mom is distraction. I can have the best intentions as far as what I want to accomplish, my planner can be utilized perfectly, and I can even have my “game on” (meaning my mind is sharp and raring to go).
