Deborah Carney @loxly
ABCs Plus, Book Goodies
I’ve interviewed about 100 work at home individuals and parents
Tips are from those interviews
Are you Ready?
-whether you want to quit your day job or approach your boss about telecommuting you need to consider whether you are able.
You need to be a self-starter that can get work done without a boss looking over you.
Get the support from your spouse. That can help keep you from eating bon bons on your couch all day.
Biggest challenge hands down is time management. It is easy to forget you are “working.” Need to let your friends and neighbors know that you are working.
Affiliates are used to working in chunks of time. Be sure to schedule in personal time and if you have to work “overtime” give yourself a break when the project is finished. After you finish dinner, you jump back on the computer, you spouse is upset because you are never spending time with them. Give yourself a break.
Tip: every day this woman goes to the park to meditate or take a walk. She has it built into each day.
Tip: work when your kids are at home, then dinner time is family time. Go back to work when they are in bed.
You are your own boss so you can set your own deadlines. If you need to push one back for your sanity, that is okay.
Workspace
What works best for you – integrated into a household or separate with a door that closes. If you have small children you might need to compromise. Positives and negatives to both.
Be Flexible
the key to successfully working from home is to be flexible and open to changing your environment and changing things around until you and your family are comfortable.
Schedule in time for doing your dishes or your laundry. Only take phone calls from your child’s school. Be firm with your neighbors that you don’t have time to have coffee or chat.
FBI rule – fire, blood, intruder rule – don’t bother me unless it is one of these things.
Social media can be a huge distraction. Don’t be checking facebook every 5 minutes, but do give yourself a social break every day if you need one.
Rescuetime.com will block all distractions on your computer, you can set it for 30 minutes. It will not allow you to go to Facebook.
As far as having a dog barking with client calls and such, tell people you are a dog friendly office.
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Thank you for such a great writeup! You rock 🙂
You are welcome, you did great. Definitely a topic I think can be expanded on at another Summit for sure!