How About Our Top 10 Tips for Work at Home Mothers???

Working at home? Having a tough time balancing work and home life? Frustrated with distractions? Wondering if this is what you should be doing? Just wish it could be easier?

Working at home can be challenging, but there are things that you can do to better your chance for success. Read on to find out the top ten tips for mothers who want to work at home successfully.

1. Set up your work space to match your personality. If you are bubbly and enthusiastic, use bold bright colors on your walls, and even for your mouse pad and file folders. Have matching accessories that reach out and make you want to use them. If you tend to be quiet and laidback, a more subtle approach may be more your style. Surrounding yourself with your comfort level, will actually encourage you to spend time in your home office and enjoy what you are doing.

2. Be organized. Lack of organization is the single biggest time waster and energy zapper. It’s too easy to get off-track and lose focus on the task at hand when you can’t locate that crucial piece of information.

3. Use a planner to organize your day, your week, and your month. Make lists, prioritize planned activities, and then set out to accomplish what’s on your list. It’s so satisfying to cross things off the “to-do” list.

4. Set up a work schedule. Although this may vary from one day to the next, after all that’s one of the perks of working from home; be realistic in your expectations. Be careful not to over-schedule yourself. Working too many hours is often a bigger problem than devoting too few hours to a home business.

5. Have call display on your phone. Only answer if it’s business related, during your scheduled work hours, if at all possible. Ask family and friends to understand that you will be unavailable at times each day, and to leave a message.

6. Be professional in your dealings with your clients. Even though you are at home, maintaining a business-like atmosphere makes it easier for you to act professional and be treated like a professional, rather than just someone who is working at home.

7. Have set times to read and respond to daily emails. Unless an email relates to your current project, don’t open it until it’s the designated “check email” time. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of quickly checking and the next thing you know a half hour has elapsed.

8. If you find that you are having difficulty devoting the necessary time and energy to your business, here’s something different to try. Treat your home business as if it belongs to someone else. Although you love your boss, she is very demanding. You want to show her that you can do this job well, but to do that you’ll have to put forth a solid effort. Sound kind of silly? By pretending that you have a boss you may be more likely to treat your home business like a real job that you want to keep and work that much harder at.

9. Eliminate distractions whenever possible. That may mean that the blinds on that window right in front of your computer are closed or that the TV in the corner is off.

10. Stay creative! If you have small children at home, you may want to be very creative about balancing them and your business. Do remember that this season with little ones is very, very short. You don’t get this time back. It is very, very difficult to balance work at home and tend to the needs of children at the same time. Stay creative! Get up a little earlier–I used to get up 2 hours earlier every day. I wrote almost all of my books in those early morning hours. I also stayed up later than them. I put them to bed every night on time. After they were in bed, I snagged that time until dad came in from work to brainstorm, write, set up books, work on my website, etc. I still get SO MUCH done that time of day. Plus, I can end the day feeling productive. Another thing that helped when the children were little was taking work with me. If you set up an Idea Notebook with your ideas, brainstorms, and writing, you can take it with you to the park or to lessons. You can also take a smaller laptop with you too. Use that time that would be lost to plug away. Just stay creative!

Keep in mind that working at home is challenging, but greatly rewarding. Following these tips will help you to overcome the challenges and become a successful work at home mom who still has her sanity at the end of the day.