BEING ADUBLI NETWORK

MOMPRENEUR

How to Work From Home – Tips of the TradeWorking from home in network market-ing or the direct selling industry is fan-tastic, entrepreneurial, with opportuni-ties abound! Up until the neighbors start a massive reconstruction of their home, your Internet service goes out due to rain or the dog gets out the back door unbe-knownst to you. If you were to work in an office, coworkers would often pose the greatest threat to keeping you from getting some quality, heads-down work done. They drop by your desk. They en-gage you in conversation. They invite you to lunch. At the home office, however, it’s easy for you to become your own worst enemy. At the home office, no one’s watching. You don’t necessarily feel that same peer pressure or communal obli-

gation to get stuff done. (Also: You don’t have to wear pants).

Working from home or being a “mompre-neur” does come with many benefits but also can present several challenges. To be successful in managing your schedule and that of your children and family takes time, consistency and persistence. For ex-ample, taking your kids to school because you work from home doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the “right” thing to do. Just be-cause you can do something doesn’t mean it’s the best use of your time. Herein, we intend to give you several suggestions to help you manage your work/life balance towards achieving success at your work from home business.

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Look at your schedule to be certain you have the hours you need to complete your work first before determining whether you can add in all the other things in your life you’d like to accomplish. To start, keep track of your time and various activities for one week and then measure how many hours you spend accomplishing each task. Study the com-plete picture as a means for getting a better sense of where you’re spending your time. Many who have done this were shocked at how much more time they spend with their kids during the early-morning hours. There is no rule that family time must be spent in the evenings. If elementary school starts at 9 and your kids wake up at 6:30, that’s a lot of time, yet most don’t think of that as family time. Let’s be honest, your kids don’t nec-essarily care when they spend quality time with you only that they do. Unless of course these hours are your most productive time

Keep Track of Timefor work, but we’ll get into that more lat-er. Seeing where you’re spending time to-gether as a family, even if it’s over a bowl of cereal, and not doing some fun activity like going to Chuck E Cheese, can help the time-starved entrepreneurial mom feel bet-ter about the hours they spend working. It’s important you manage both your work and family time. Your “to-do” list is always going to be too long. Prioritize it.

If you’re a morning person, wake up before your kids, put on a pot of coffee, and start working immediately – much earlier than normal working hours. Only start making breakfast once you’ve hit a wall, when your kids are hungry, or you need a break. Pre-tend like you are going into the office. Get fully ready for the day and pretend you’re going to work in an office. Otherwise, you might be inclined to go back to bed.

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While working on weekends tends to get a bad rap, entrepreneurs can actually use weekend time to achieve a better work-life balance with minimal expense at missing out on family time. For moms who were busy doing kid-related stuff during what would normally be a regular workday, or if they limited their work hours to school hours only, there is often valuable work time miss-ing from their lives. It’s hard to run a busi-ness with only 35 available hours a week. To compensate, many work-from-home parents work five hours on the weekend, while their kids are with the other parent, which makes it possible to still work enough

Work on Weekendshours. However, we must remind you, it’s not about quantity of work hours but qual-ity. If you are someone who can complete two hours of work in the same amount of time that someone else can accomplish in four, by all means, we salute you! When you run your own business, working nights and weekends are a fact of life. But you will be a lot more productive if you set a schedule for yourself. Decide when you’ll work and when you won’t. Think about what you can real-istically get done around doctor’s appoint-ments and school schedules. If you must put in weekend hours, limit them, so you’ll still have time to enjoy your family.

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Finding time to exercise and take care of yourself may be at the bottom of an entre-preneurial parent’s to-do list, self-care is a key component to finding time to do it all. It’s how you find the energy to do every-thing that’s on your plate. Self-care – phys-ical activity and sleep, for example – don’t take time; they make time. That time gets paid back in renewed focus for the rest of the day. Carve out decompressing time into your schedule. If you regularly go to bed at 11, plan to stop work at 10 so you can relax for an hour – take a bath, watch TV, read a book, or do something for yourself to disen-gage and get ready for the next day. It seems to be common thought nowadays that being the leader of a company and being a parent are mutually exclusive roles, and that is just not true. Although it can be difficult to strike a balance and be great at both, it is not im-possible. All it takes is a little bit of strategiz-ing and commitment.

Take Care of Yourself

For example, set the rules that you will never miss one of your children’s sporting events, drop your kids off at school twice a week; and wake up early enough to make and eat breakfast with your kids every day. On the days you are on school drop-off duty use that time to bond with your children in the car. Make exclusive mommy/child time with each of your offspring so that they know that you care and want to spend quality time with them as individuals. Solid organiza-tional skills will help you as well. Coordinate the timing of after school activities among all your children and make sure they are all on the same schedule to have their annual check-ups.

Setting these rules will help you to structure your schedule and make time to fulfill your role as a parent. Choose a few requirements and make sure you fully commit to them, re-gardless of what work issue may come up. Once you start letting things slide, the entire purpose of setting these rules has been lost.

Set your rules and stick to them

While it doesn’t always feel like it, work can usually wait.

Letting work consume your life and im-pact the joys you receive as a parent is unhealthy and a hindrance to producing quality work. When you get home, put away your phone until your kids go to bed and return emails and phone calls later on in the evening.

If something is a true emergency, your team will know how to reach you through channels other than email. The small win-dow of time you spend with your kids at dinner and bedtime is incredibly valuable, and it’s perfectly fine to take off your work hat and put on your parent hat.

Be aware that work can usually wait

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