Are You at Home with Your Home Business Opportunity?
A Home Business Article Contributed by Donna M. Brown
The Juggling Game: is This a Home Business Opportunity or a Circus?
One of the most common complaints of home business opportunity enthusiasts is the difficulty of balancing work and home. When work is at home and home is at work, it can get hard to make a clear distinction between the two! Let's face it, family crisis crops up in every parents' day to some degree. You might feel like a circus clown walking a high wire without a net from time to time. Holidays, special occasions, social events, sports and school interests compete veraciously with your need and desire to make a resounding success of your latest home business opportunity.
Finding the right balance between work and family is always a challenge - even if your work is a two-hour communte away. As a home-based self employed person you will need to learn to keep many balls in the air at once! You can do this and a little planning can help make this home business opportunity the dream you hoped for and not a home-based nightmare.
Pursue Your Home Business Opportunity with a Business Mind and Some Private Space
It's great that you're working from home, but your work doesn't have to be the center of your home. Respect your family's space by keeping your work area away from the places your family loves to congregate. They will be more willing to help with your home business opportunity if you will make a concerted effort to make a clear, physical distinction between family and work.
You're thinking of your family by making this distinction, sure, but you are also protecting yourself and (the hair you might end up pulling out) by finding a quiet place to work that is free of distractions. You need a place to work and a place to relax. If you don't create physical boundaries, you will eventually become confused about which place is which. Consciously and subconsciously you will find it harder and harder to relax when you should be relaxing and work when you should be at work.
Your Home Business Opportunity Allows Flexibility, but You Will Need Discipline and Order
The good news is, this home business opportunity allows you plenty of flexibility. The bad news is, this home based business opportunity allows you plenty of flexibility.
Just as jugglers practice for hours on end to keep their balls in the air (an you can rest assured those balls fall to the ground from time to time) you will need to practice setting and maintaining specific work hours. Be good to yourself, but be firm and committed to respecting the work hours you have set. Build breaks into your day and schedule time for the things you need to do. But don't be afraid to say "no" when somebody needs an emergency ride to the shopping mall or a batch of cookies you simply don't have the time to make.
If you are a parent and have many familial obligations, offer your partner and children an opportunity to pencil in appointments and obligations with which they will need your help ahead of time. Set out a family calendar on Sunday and make everyone aware that they will be required to plan ahead so that you can plan the most effective use of your time. On Monday, use the family schedule to plan the hours you will work.
This will teach other family members responsibility and will help you to say no to the whims of family members who are used to demanding your attention (and getting it). Explain to them that this home business opportunity is important to you and that they will have to do their part by planning for a piece of your time.
