by Ma. Teresa Baniaga

Created on: February 05, 2009

Working from home is a most convenient option for mothers who want to spend as much hours as they want with their children. With the modern gadgets and equipment technology has to offer today, it is not a hard decision to make to work at home. To be a successful home-based career woman, you only need to strike a balance between your life as a stay-at- home mom and a work-from-home career woman. Here are a few helpful pointers:

Define your work space:

First, define your spaces at home. Designate a separate work area like a mini office. It need not be a grand place, it can just be a small cubicle, or a little corner conveniently tucked into a quiet and private area of the house.

Dress up your work space to look like a real office, complete with all the important equipment you need to work or run your business. For example, if you only have one phone line and it is located in the living room, have an extension in your own work area. This gives you a great psychological boost about you meaning business even when you are just at home.

Not only that, you will also save time running around the entire house going from your desktop computer to answer the phone or fax something. Having a defined work space also helps your family to visualize your role as a working mom, apart from what they know of you as wife or mom. This will make them more cooperative and supportive of your home-based career.

Determine your objectives:

Set deadlines for your outputs or deliverables in your work or business so your clients know that you mean business with them. You can even carry this a little further by coming up with a vision for your business or home-based career and setting strategic or annual and even quarterly objectives or targets.

To balance this, designate also vacations or breaks from your work, much like what you get when you are regularly employed. This will give you days to rest, relax and just be with your family.

Develop time management savvy:

Having settled that, develop impeccable time management skills. Time management is the best kept secret of successful work-at-home moms. Keep to a structured schedule with the number of hours for work and household chores fairly divided according to your priorities.

If you have smaller children, then you can schedule your working hours during their nap time or when they are already asleep at night or when there is another adult to look after them even just for the few hours that you are working. If your children are in school during the day,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>