I meet a lot of women lately that are interested in starting a home-based business. The reasons are many: time home with the children, flexible hours, or following an interest.
When I’m asked if I enjoy working from home, I emphatically answer YES. I do love it. I enjoy the fact that I can sit at my computer in my pajamas at eight AM, noon, eight PM or even sometime in the early morning hours when the night owls are even in bed. I can work on a variety of projects that make me smile. I enjoy doing something that I love for a change, because for a long time I didn’t. I enjoy having time to go to the park with my daughters during the day, or to make a doctor’s appointment whenever, rather than having to cram it in at five thirty in the evening along with a lot of other people who are tired and ready to go home.
Yes, I love working from home.
But it is not for everyone
What do you mean, you ask? I’ll give you some insight.
First of all, if you like to be surrounded by people, working from home is not for you. Working from home is very isolating; as you sit alone day after day with your, well, work. And tha’ts it. I do talk on the phone, as I have interviews that need to be conducted. I do talk to clients regularly. I do open the door when the UPS guy ships some products that I have to photograph. But I don’t get out and mingle with other people who are doing the same thing that I am doing; at least, not on a regular basis. There is a big difference between working in an office surrounded by other coworkers and working at home surrounded by your things and, sometimes you family.
If you don’t like to do everything, you won’t like working at home. When working at home you become the boss, the secretary, the ad assistant, the phone call taker, the complaint listener, the advocate, the marketer . . . well you get my drift. If your math skills are below par or you can’t speak to strangers without breaking out in hives, you might need someone to assist you, or you might just need to suck it up and get it done. I am low on the math skills, and thankfully my husband was blessed with these. Software programs help, too, or you can hire someone like a virtual assistant to help with certain tasks. Just keep in mind that your low points are also things that you will have to take care of if you work from home, so you have to figure out a way around them.
If you think you’ll have more time if you work at home, then working at home is not for you. You won’t have more time; in fact, in many cases you will have less. First of all, if you are working from home you will have towork your hours around the schedules of everyone else that lives beneath your roof. This can be tough. If you are working at home because you have young children at home then when are you going to work? Yep, early morning, naptime, and into the late night. So when do you rest? You don’t. At least, not until the kids go to school. Opening a business is a tough path. You think you won’t work as much as you do, but then you actually work more. Check out this great blog by Kori about creating uninterrupted time for your business.
But over all, I have to say, I’ve never been happier professionally than I am right now. I mean, it’s late at night, my kids are asleep, and here I am, pounding away at the keyboard writing about something that I love. Now, that isn’t a bad night at work, is it?