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