Tips to successfully work from home

With technology advancing on a daily basis and allowing us to communicate internationally at the press of a button, it’s no surprise that rather than returning to work outside the home after having children, more and more women are now launching their own home-based businesses. In fact, women now own almost half of the 900,000+ home-based businesses in Australia (according to Greg Bondor, Executive Chairman of the Home Based Business Network).

Women want the flexibility of being able to work around their family’s needs, able to respond quickly when their children are sick or as necessary within the myriad of other responsibilities working mothers have. However, many women who run their own business from home often feel torn between dedicating their time to growing their business and the requirements of their home and family. Many women feel guilty because they’re spending time on their business and feel they are abandoning their children, or they are spending time with their family when they want to be working on and in their business.

So how can you find more balance and how can you make working from home work for you?

Here are 5 tips to working from home successfully:

1. Have a vision

Do you have a picture in your head of what success will look like for you? Do you have goals written down for your business and personal life? Do you know how much money you want to earn, how many hours you want to work and who you want to work with? Do you know what it is you are working for – to pay off your mortgage, buy a better car, put your children through university, plan for your retirement or go on a long holiday? If you don’t have a clear picture of what you want your business to achieve, it will be easy to lose focus and direction.

2. Set boundaries and stick to them

Decide how many hours you want to work based on your current situation. If your children are small and need your constant attention, you probably can’t plan on working 8 hours a day – you will only feel frustration and resentment when it doesn’t happen. You can always change this figure as your family dynamic changes, but it is imperative that you are realistic to begin with. Write down all the tasks you have to complete in an average week for your home and your work and then work out how many hours you can and want to dedicate to your business. If it is important to you to spend time with your children when they come home from school, set the alarm for ten minutes before they get home, turn off your computer, tidy your desk and mentally switch from work mode to family mode.

3. Make a plan

As the old saying goes “to fail to plan is to plan to fail”. How often have you started working as soon as the kids have left for school and what feels like five minutes later they’re knocking on the door and you feel like you haven’t achieved anything? At the start of each week make a list of everything that has to be completed by the end of the week. Every morning, spend ten minutes planning the day and if you are someone who is easily distracted, set times against each task and stick to them as best you can.

4. Have a designated work space

This doesn’t need to be a huge glamorous office built onto the side of your house – it can be an existing room (that you perhaps only use occasionally for guests) or part of another room that you can easily access without too much disruption to the rest of the family. Perhaps you have a corner in your lounge room or family room that is currently used for storage or holds a piece of furniture that isn’t used very often. Perhaps you have space under your stairs or at one end of your dining room, or perhaps you can steal a wall of the garage from the clutches of the garden tools and car products. Whatever you decide, make it work for you with an effective paper storage system and somewhere for you to sit comfortably with the tools you need for your work.

5. Get dressed for work every day

I’m not suggesting that you put on a dress suit and stockings, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of staying in your pyjamas and slippers all day. By changing into your “work” clothes, you consciously make the transition between home and work which helps you to focus and not be so easily distracted by household chores.

Sharon Chisholm is an award winning Professional Organiser and Coach. She specialises in helping women business owners establish an organised and efficient home, in order to create the space they need in their lives to run a successful and profitable business.  Her website is www.therestfulnest.com.au and Facebook pages https://www.facebook.com/TheRestfulNest