Is working from home on your list of things to consider this year? You’re not alone….
So September has rolled around again and many mums find themselves with transitions. Children are growing up, starting nursery or school (or even starting secondary or leaving home altogether. You may find yourself with a bit more time and may be wondering whether working from home could be an option for you.
Working from home does sound like the perfect solution for mums, especially if you are going to get a few hours when the children are being educated or looked after elsewhere, so you can sit down and concentrate on your work.
The first question has to be whether you can do what you already do from home – in which case this is quite possibly the safest option, especially if you tried it during the pandemic and found that it worked out for you. But the majority of home working mums are working on businesses of their own, so the first thing you need to do, if that’s you, is pick your business .
That’s a whole separate subject, finding a business that will ignite your passion and bring you joy. And that’s just step one – next you have to get used to being your own boss, and after that you need to figure out how to get your business out there and known in the world without a marketing department to do that for you.
Make the Most of your Freedom
When you’re working from home, you have a whole lot of freedom at your disposal. You decide how you work, when you work and in what order you tackle things.
You can work around the needs of your children, and you can also work at the best times that suit you. You can get up earlier, or go to bed later, and you will also be able to schedule in self care, exercise and whatever you need throughout the day. Sounds perfect doesn’t it?
Establish a Routine
Routines are really important when you’re working from home because there’s a big risk that they become too loose.
It’s all very well to say that you have so much freedom, and so you do, but what can actually happen is either you work too much and end up neglecting yourself and your family, or you get pulled off to all the home things, personal things and family things that you new found freedom allows, and then neglect parts of your work.
You don’t want to be procrastinating and wasting time each day because that will only lead to your working day being dragged out for longer, so try to establish a work routine early on and stick to it as far as you can. It’s the only way to keep things sustainable for yourself. Check out some of these time management tips to see how you can best structure your day.
Motivate Yourself
This is the real biggie when you are working for yourself. When you start a business, any business it starts small. there is so much set up and admin to do which you are not getting paid for. You have to get to grips with all kinds of stuff, and it can be disheartening if sales don’t pile in at first, to make all your hard work worthwhile.
Staying motivated is one of the biggest challenges of all when you’re working from home. You don’t want to lose motivation or momentum because when that happens, you will start avoiding work and not giving it your all. And with no one else around to motivate you, you need to be able to motivate yourself properly.
One of the things I have found very helpful when I get a motivation dip is to go on a small business forum on Facebook or similar, or to attend a networking group. I love the Blogging Mums Club for people making a living through blogging. You can pick up hints or tips by asking questions, and if nothing else you can have a good chat and feel like you are not alone.
Get Better at Online Communication
When you run a business from home, by definition you are not out there all the time making sales, and so the main thing you will have to get to grips with is working online.
Whatever your business, you will need a website, and to have some knowledge of SEO to get your website seen. You will need to master one or more social media, email marketing and a whole lot else besides, not to mention, admin, bookkeeping and taxes.
You may feel like you want to start a cupcakes business for instance, but you need to understand that this involves much more than just baking cupcakes. It can be overwhelming at first and it’s certainly a huge learning curve and more work than it looks.
Find a Course
If all this talk about digital marketing and online business has your head spinning, then you basically have two options – either you pay someone else to do it for you, or you learn it.
Maybe you want to pick up a few digital marketing or social media tips just to supplement what you already know. It’s easy to find courses on Pinterest or Instagram for example, so you can add one skill at a time to your portfolio.
So there you have it – an idea of what you need to consider before you start working from home. It could be the best decision you ever made, but it’s not one to be taken lightly. Feel free to find me in one of the groups above or leave a comment below if you would like to chat through your idea. I’d be happy to help.
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The biggest challenge I had when I started working from home was to establish the ground rules of when I was working and not to be disturbed unless there was a crisis. Friends and family were trained to understand that though my pet still has access to me as Office Muse. 🙂 My work hours have become more flexible too but I have to stick to a schedule because I don’t have a boss breathing down my neck anymore.
That is something I still struggle with. Although my family are away for most of the day, they still sometimes don’t understand when I need to work on in the evenings or occasionally at weekends. I try hard not to do so much of that, but it can be hard to get the balance.