2 Minute Commute - Making House Rules

 

~WORKING AT HOME~

 So many people in this world want to work at home. They either want to move their job to their home office and become a telecommuter for the company they work for or start their own work at home business for themselves. So many different reasons can push people to want to demolish the thought of a 9-5. However, when you have made the decision to cut the 1 hr commute to 2 minutes, there has to be guidelines when trying to balance your family and earning an income to be successful.You will need to definitely make some house rules or alternate the ones you have.

First, You have to rule out any feelings of guilt. Many parents come home to be with their kids, but then feel bad because they are not spending all the time with them. You have to dedicate time to both work & family and manage it wisely and productively. So, if you do this, you have no reason to feel guilty. Remind yourself, you used to be away from the house for 8+ hrs a day, so give yourself a break and don't beat yourself up.

Making Guidelines! you HAVE to set those ground rules. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. Its vital. If not, you will just find yourself doing all the household chores, looking at a disorganized home office. When you have school aged children, it definitely makes things easier. But if you are anything like me and have a toddler or multiple children under the age of 6 at home, it can become rather tough. Below I have listed some "house rules" that should be applied, when running a Work at Home Business:

*1)MAKE A SCHEDULE/ROUTINE

 Again, this is something, that is vital to have a productive at home business. Whether, you work while the kids are in school, taking a nap, or if they can entertain themselves with an activity, you have to do it. Make sure the time that you have scheduled in the day to work, that you are actually working. What I mean by that, is make sure you are doing something that will bring you results. Yes, marketing, advertising, email responding, updating posts, etc, will bring in customers, clients or leads. However, if you are not talking with those people, you will never make any money. Wait until the kids are in bed to advertise if you have to. Prioritizing your time is a lifesaver and the quicker you realize that, the easier this will be. I have included an example of my own weekly schedule, just so you can get an idea: 

Mon - Friday

6-8am : Breakfast and preparing the kids for school/dropping them off.

8-10am: Ameriplan - outgoing calls - potential benefit & team members; respond to emails

  (2.5 yr old son is entertaining himself with coloring, sesame street or legos- most of the time quiet :))

10-10:30am: training calls - we have a team call once a week at this time

10:30-11am: pick up my daughter from school

11-12pm: Lunch - lay my 2 kids down for a nap

12:30-2pm: Ameriplan - outgoing calls - potential benefit & team members

2-3:00pm: picking my son up from school

3-5pm: Ameriplan - available for incoming calls

5-8pm: family time (some cleaning is thrown in there if needed)

10-11pm: Ameriplan - online advertising and responding to emails  

               (now you may not want to stay up this late and thats ok, but this is what works for me)

Saturday:
Family Time - I am a little more flexible if I am at home. I will take calls if I am available.

9-10pm - Ameriplan -online advertising respond to emails

Sunday:

Day Off

Now as you can see above I work in between my kids schedule, and get in an average about 3-4 hrs a day. The most important thing I focus on is calling my clients (potential and existing) during the day. This is what will generate my income, so I can continue to work from home. Then I advertise at night, once my kids are asleep. This may not work exactly for you, but you can at least use this as a guideline when creating yours. 

*2)RESPECT IT

Now that you have set the schedule, you need to explain to your family or household that this time is valuable and needs to be respected. The best thing to do , is to dedicate a place in your home to work. Keep it off limits for anything else, if you have a door ( lucky if you do ) close it , while working. Sometimes, I take the risk of my 2 year old crying in the back ground, because unfortunately I cannot go into a seperate room, but hey those are the joys of working from home and being with your kids....gotta love it! Since, you have made it clear that while you are working, you can't be disturbed, whether its 30 minutes or 2 hours, you need to make sure you dedicate that time for your children as well. Spending at least 30-45 minutes of quality 1 on 1 or my case 1 on 3 time means the world to them. So make sure you make it a priority daily to do that as well. 

Also, I forgot to mention, some things your younger children can do to occupy themselves while you are working: 

*coloring 

*crafts 

*legos 

*puzzles / games

*outdoor activities (for older children who can be unsupervised)

*tv (there are alot of educational cartoons/shows & if you can't find any on tv, you can go buy them, for them to watch at that time)

*Video games - Wii or Xbox : these 2 have very active full body motion games, where you can seriously break a sweat. between the sports & the dances, they will be completely occupied. It gives them a chance to get active in the house. My kids are at the age they are too young to go outside with out supervision, so this is a great way for them to be active. Some parents may not like the thought of video games, I used to be one of them, but they are not what they used to be when we were kids.

....these are a just to name a few. 

*3) GOALS

I touched base on this subject on my post last week, but it is so important. You have to continue to set goals for yourself and hold yourself responsible to make them happen. If you are not setting goals to meet, then you are not going to grow and flourish. You will either just stay right where you are or unfortunately plunge. So set a big long term goal and then figure out what you will have to do and the smaller goals you will have to set to get there. For instance, my big goal is to make the annual $2500 bonus. So to do that , I have to at least recruit 5 people on a monthly basis, for 12 consecutive months. Now for me to recruit those 5, I have to stay consistent on advertising and making sure that I am calling at least 20 new people daily. If I do these small goals I will meet my big one in due time. 

*4)GROWING & POSITIVITY

See the big picture! Remember why you started this and work at it everyday. Consistency pays off along with a positive attitude. Don't feed into negativity and don't lose focus. Keep working everyday no matter what, I am sure you will find the results you are looking for. However, with all the work you must educate yourself as well. Jump on training calls at LEAST 2-3 a week. If you don't have them available to you then pick up a local work shop, audio training (either from library rentals, online stores such as amazon or local bookstores), listen to motivational speakers (many have videos online, if you can't attend live), read successful entrepreneur's books, research your field, etc. The point is you should always be feeding your mind. You are what you listen to, what you read, what you watch. So make sure whatever it is you are feeding your mind is positive and will make you, your business and family grow and flourish into what you are working so hard for.

I wish you all the best of luck!

Michelle Everett

Have Hope

Having Hope

H.O.P.E.  - Having Only Positive Expectations!

You have to have positive thoughts, feelings, and expectations in the world or you will never get anywhere. What you put out in life is what you get back. So have hope that it will be ok, that you will conquer your fears and raise above any turmoil in your life and then surpass what you ever expected to do!

I know there has been many times I feel like throwin my hands up and saying forget it. I had completely lost hope in making more money, having a better relationship or life in general. So many of you, can relate to this. However, Hope and Faith is the ONLY thing we can have when all else fails. So no matter how bad it gets you gotta keep it alive!

I was reading one of Dani Johnson's book and she touches on the hope we had as a child. How innocent it was and how real it felt.....Remember when you were a child and you anticipated for Christmas or Easter or even got excited when your tooth fell out. Why? Because you knew you were getting toys and money from Santa or the Tooth Fairy.  Now, all those years ago when you were a child you truly believed with all your might that there was a man who could fit in your chimney that brought you toys or a little fairy who went around picking up teeth in the middle of the night in exchange for cash. So you anticipated it with excitement. You never tried to analyze how crazy it sounded, never needed proof. You new in your heart that he was real and had hope that no matter what, you would have a present from Santa under that tree the next morning.

The point is, if you could believe whole heartily in something, such as Santa with no proof that he even exists, then you can BELIEVE in yourself and have HOPE that you will prosper in your life. You do NOT need to see the future , you need to create it. If you believe that you have the power to form the life you choose then it will happen. It may take hard dedication and work , and you may fail a few times, but you have to have hope and keep going. BELIEVE in YOURSELF or no one else will.

Don't give up

The key to success!

****** GOALS, CONSISTENCY, SUCCESS******

I cannot stress enough how important is to make goals and be consistent. Now this goes for anything that you want in life. You have to make this a priority to be consistent. If you don't , you will not reach your goals or it will take extremely more time and effort then needed!

So the first thing I suggest is to WRITE out your goals. Make it visible to the naked eye. Make it to where you are reminded daily of what you are working so hard for. This puts things into perspective and makes them very real. Like I said, do this with anything you are working towards. Whether its building a business, getting a promotion, losing weight, etc. Goals are stemmed from dreams and with out dreams, there is no hope. So keep your hope ALIVE.

So when making these goals, usually you have ONE BIG GOAL you are aiming to, however, you are going to have to do alot to get there. So break down those goals. Make small daily, weekly or monthly goals to reach, so you can get to that yearly goal. This for one will make it alot easier to obtain. When you see that you are reaching the smaller goals it drives you to reach the next one and the next. Before you know it, that year has passed and you are where you wanted to be. So make sure that you have this in mind when you pull that paper and pen out to start writing!

Ok, so once you know what you want, you have to figure out how to get it and make sure you make the time to do it!  When it comes to your business, MAKE A SCHEDULE..hold on , I don't think ya'll heard me...MAKE A SCHEDULE! Think about it, if you were to work a "job" you would work a set schedule and would not be allowed to walk away from the job to do laundry, cook, watch tv, grocery shop, etc. So, you need to have that same mindset when it comes to your homebased business! When you treat your business like a business, you will get paid like a business! But if you dare treat your BUSINESS like a hobby, then guess what you will be making hobby money. You decide what you want.

When you make a schedule, this dedicates specific time to working your business. Now when I say working I mean, DOING what is going to make you those mighty fine benjamins. Producing checks is what all of our goals are when we start, so this is the momentum you have to keep driving daily through your business. So by doing that you have to do what produces the money, which is talking to people. Responding to emails, social networking on facebook, posting ads, etc. will not make you money. CALLING the people who respond to all of this WILL. So if you are limited to time in the day, then make sure the time you do have set aside, you use to call people. Wait till the evening when your kids are tucked away in bed to post ads and respond to emails. You will fill more accomplished and will have more results! Let me add, when making goals, set a goal on how many people you want to talk to and MAKE IT HAPPEN! Hold yourself responsible, don't let no be an answer!

Once you find yourself in a routine that works for you and producing you results, you have to STAY CONSISTENT! I cannot stress this enough, when you stop, the growth of your business and check stops as well. Remember, when you are consistent and doing something daily it will soon form a habit. If you form a habit, you will realize that you are doing most things almost on "auto pilot" because it comes so natural to you.  So make sure you are putting that effort in DAILY! Even if you find that you may be struggling at first, you may need to tweek some things here and there, but if you stay at it and be CONSISTENT, you will reach the GOALS you have made for yourself, which will bring you the SUCCESS that you thrive for each day!

So get out there and whether this is day 1 or your 4 years deep, create a goal, make a schedule, prioritize that time, and be consistent everyday and I KNOW you will soon be at the top of  your business!!!!

Good Luck & Game ON!!

>Michelle<

Be Consistent!

I am so excited to start this blog! I feel that I am ready to make that commitment and dedication that a blog entails to be succes and I hope that you follow me for years to come!
Thanks again to everyone who is here with me :)

>Michelle<