One of the benefits of working from home is that as your needs change, you can change your work to fit them. The changes can be large or small, gradual or sudden, but the point is that you are in control of what you do when and for whom. This means that you have the power to make changes if you realize that doing things differently will be beneficial for you and for your family.
During the time that I have been a home-based professional, I have made some changes to my work. Some things have remained constant, but some have changed. The basic nature of my work has not changed much since I started. I started out doing legal work and added freelance writing later on. I still do both of those things, although the amount and type of each vary slightly from time to time.
Last summer I added baking into the mix, making delicious desserts two nights each week and selling them at local farmers’ markets. While people loved the things that I made and I attracted quite a few regular customers, I did not earn as much money as I has anticipated. Towards the end of the summer I decided to discontinue my baking business because I was putting more money into ingredients than I was bringing home in sales. My customers were sad to hear the news and my husband was sad that there were no longer leftover goodies around the house. I was okay with it though, because it was not bringing in the income that I needed. The change freed me up to do more of my other work.
Now that I think back on it, it is a good thing that the baking business was not more successful. It would have been much harder to make it work this summer. My son, who was about seven months old when I started baking, is nineteen months old now. There is a huge difference between taking a seven-month-old to a farmers’ market for an afternoon and taking a nineteen-month-old. Last summer, Dylan would hang out with me in my market booth. He liked to be carried in a baby sling most of the time, and sometimes he would play quietly on a blanket on the ground. Fast forward to this summer where he’s on the move all day long exploring his world. Keeping him in one place for three hours would be pretty much impossible, not to mention unfair. I would have had to have someone watch him while I went to the markets, and that would not have been worth it to me.
I am very happy with the changes that I have made to my home-based work so far. It is my hope that all home-based professionals recognize their power to make the changes that they wish to see in their work, and that they have the courage to make them. How has your home-based work changed over time? I would love to hear about it.