SailingToSuccess

I've enjoyed "meeting" Aurelia Williams at various places in WAHM-dom and here she gives some basics about balance in your home business and personal life. Nothing "earth shattering" here, but really good reminders of how to keep sane amidst a sometimes insane pace of life that we put ourselves on when we work from home and try to be the perfect wife/mother/friend at the same time. Read it with fresh eyes and enjoy!

How to Find Balance In Your Work At Home Career And Your Personal Life

By: Aurelia Williams

Work at home moms face challenges that are very unique. The decision to work outside the home or stay with your children is difficult, with each option having advantages and disadvantages. If you stay home you may lose income and you will lose interaction with fellow employees, and if you work outside the home you live with separation from your children and pay caregiver expenses. Many women are choosing to work at home and finding the right opportunity is the first step in finding success as a work at home mom.

You could use the knowledge and skills you have and become a consultant, develop a career in design or writing, telecommute to a job, or start a home-based business. The opportunities are endless.

It can be difficult for a work at home mom to balance home, family, and career. Even if you are not a parent it is hard to find time for a personal life when you operate a home-based business. It is very easy to become consumed by your work when you work from home and it can be a challenge to find time for yourself and your family.

To successfully balance a home and career you must create a work schedule. Decide what hours will be set aside for work and try hard to stick to that time-frame. It very beneficial to create a boundary between work and home. Setting a work schedule will give you a routine to follow.

To give yourself the opportunity to socialize and meet new people, try geting involved with community or other volunteer activities. If you do not get out of the house regularly you may begin to resent your work and your family obligations.

During your workday, take short breaks to get up and move around. A simple stretching routine or a short walk will do wonders for your outlook. It will be necessary for you to deliberately schedule time for personal activities such as reading, picnics, or exercise.

By adding these activities and free time to your schedule you will ensure that you get some much needed "mommy" time and that your family spends quality time together. You will find that if your leisure and family time suffer too much, your relationships will suffer as well. Make time for the fun things and times shared with children and family.

If you implement these ideas into your life as a work at home mom, you will be better able to achieve balance between work and your home life.

Article Source: http://www.ladypens.com - Articles by Women

Aurelia Williams is the mom of four busy children, a Personal Life Coach and the owner of Real Life Solutions, which is an informational site that also offers products, articles and a great newsletter. You can also hear Aurelia daily on the WAHM Talk Radio show, she is the Resident Life Coach.

**Here's another humourous but true article from my friend Nicole that I thought you'd enjoy!**

The Perils of the Home Office - By Nicole Dean

So you’ve started a home business. You went out and purchased a nice desk and comfortable chair, and maybe even a new computer with all of the necessary extras. Now you’re ready to earn an income from home! How nice it will be to be your own boss, to work when you feel like it and to answer to no one. At least that‘s what you think.

If your business involves the internet you’re probably going to spend a lot of time at your desk. You think your desk at work was a mess? You have no idea. This past year was one of the most stressful times I’ve ever experienced; mostly due to the chaos that was my Home Office, conveniently located in my dining room. Here is the type of scenario that played itself out in my home on a daily basis:

‘Get up, fix coffee, take cup to desk, move slinky off desk, let the dog out, open email, start making list of tasks to complete, answer the phone, take a message for husband, leave note on desk, let the dog back in, separate screaming siblings, remember to pay phone bill, locate phone bill among the dozen or so envelopes piled up on desk, write check, leave the prepared bill among the remnants of the other bills, three-year-old runs up to give Mommy a hug and spills coffee all over desk, throw out the phone bill with the pile of trash (forgetting it’s there in the first place) along with son’s school enrollment paperwork that’s been lying on desk under home business catalogs and order forms and phone message taken earlier for husband.'

The result of my morning's effort? Enrollment is late, phone bill isn’t paid on time, and husband wonders if I'll ever regain sanity. Rewind, repeat tomorrow, next week, next month etc.

Sound familiar? If you’re new to home business, then maybe you haven’t yet experienced the perils of the Home Office. I think the phrase is an oxymoron for most people. There’s very little divide between the stuff for home and the stuff for your business. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a separate room for your office, I bet your family (and you too) are guilty of leaving items or taking stuff to and from your desk. I don’t know how many times I have looked for the three ring hole punch, only to find it on my daughter's art table along with the kitchen tongs and bathroom plunger.

So you’re asking yourself, ‘How do I keep my desk organized and my desk contents out of the hands of my family?’ Good question. There are dozens of articles and books written to help ‘get organized’, but if you and your family are not respectful of the Home Office Space, then no number of organizing binders and boxes and tabs and expanding folders will help. I tried. Really I did. I kept finding my lovely wicker In/Out Box in my daughter's room, you guessed it, by the art table with the other items she ‘borrowed.’

What finally helped my stressful Home Office situation was to schedule a time every week to throw away old bills, to not even bring the junk mail into the house in the first place, and to use a simple file folder system located in my desk drawer to keep my home business paperwork, and family papers. As far as the littlest sneak thief - I gave my daughter her own desk drawer full of interesting things to look at. Simple plan. Now if I could just find that ringing telephone…!

Nicole Dean faces the perils of the Home Office daily. She's a work at home mom, and owner of http://www.showmomthemoney.com - a fun resource to help Work at Home Moms stay mostly sane. She also welcomes you to visit http://www.homeorganizationhelp.com for a battle plan to tackle your home office perils and the chaos in every other room of your house.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

This is from MountainWings.com. Another great illustration of balance in your family life and home business:

Put The Glass Down =============

A lecturer was giving a lecture to his students on stress management. He raised a glass of water and asked the audience, "How heavy do you think this glass of water is?" The students' answers ranged from 20g to 500gm.

"It does not matter on the absolute weight. It depends on how long you hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, it is OK.
If I hold it for an hour, I will have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance.

It is the exact same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier. What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before holding it up again.

We have to put down the burden periodically, so that we can be refreshed and are able to carry on.

So before you return home from work tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it back home. You can pick it up tomorrow.

Whatever burdens you are having now on your shoulders, let it down for a moment if you can.

Pick it up again later when you have rested.

Rest and relax. Life is short, enjoy it!

~Author Unknown~ From MountainWings.com

Don't Give Up


Try Our Two Secrets to Success At Home
Creativity & Persistence

Working from home can be a very rewarding decision. There are so many benefits including freedom to create your own schedule, choosing the type of business that you want to represent, and being able to raise your children yourself. However, running a business can also become a very stressful situation. It takes time to build a successful business and many entrepreneurs become discouraged if they don’t achieve immediate results. Often times they give up too soon and regret it later. This doesn’t have to happen to you. Let us share with you what we found to be two top secrets to help you achieve success at home.

One important thing that many work-at-home moms do not recognize is that it can take six months to a year at minimum for your business to be successful financially. If you are aware of this going into the business and have planned accordingly, then you are already one step ahead of the game and won’t become unnecessarily discouraged.

Also, be aware that the time frame it takes to start a business will vary depending on the type of business that you are starting. For example, for those that are starting in direct sales, you may be able to jump in, hold some home parties, and see an income right away. In this case, then you just need to focus on maintaining this income to keep it successful.

However, if you are starting an Internet business selling your own products or services, it may take much longer to see the fruits of your labor. For some, it can take a year or even two to create a “presence” online and for people to recognize and seek out your products. You will find that the benefits are well worth the time and effort in the end, but it can be discouraging waiting to see a profit.

So, how does a person make it in the work-at-home world? I think the two most important aspects of running your own business from home are creativity and persistence.

Creativity—Be creative in how you market your products and/or services. Start by thinking of ways that you can reach customers that will make you stand out from others who offer similar types of products. Design contests, free offers and other types of marketing strategies that will bring customers to your website. Then, try to determine what your customers are looking for once they reach your website and offer the most popular products on your front page. Keep in mind that it’s important to keep your website fresh so consider changing the items or text on your website’s front page often. This will continue to pique the interest of your customers each time they visit and encourage them to come back.

Persistence—This is key when you are running a business from home. Don’t start out strong marketing yourself in every way possible and then simply stop marketing because you haven’t seen many sales. Most profitable businesses must continually be marketing their services to keep it successful. Try to think of a successful business that does no advertising. Can they just sit back and let the sales roll in from their website? Not really. It just doesn’t work that way. EVERY business must continue to advertise in some way to stay successful. For example, we found at Christian Work At Home Moms CWAHM.COM that those that achieve the most success are the consistent advertisers, the ones who advertise regularly and keep their businesses, banners, and other promotions in front of their potential clients.

This does not mean that you must spend hundreds of dollars a month to advertise your home-based business. What it does mean is that you must be persistent in the advertising that you choose to do. Budget your advertising dollars in a way that you can do a small amount consistently. Get involved in groups online and ask advice from other successful moms. Whatever you do, don’t stop talking about your business!

And most importantly, don’t give up. Success IS possible. Take the time to be creative in how you are marketing your business. Be persistent and don’t expect profits immediately. Set realistic goals for your business and be patient while your business grows into something you can be proud of. Soon you’ll be among the millions of work-at-home moms who are enjoying it all: Being home with the kids, financial freedom, and the pride of having their own home-based business.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jill Hart is the author of the e-book, 2 Weeks Devotional Journey for Christian Work at Home Moms, and the founder and editor of Christian Work at Home Moms CWAHM.COM . This site is dedicated to providing work at home moms with opportunities to promote their businesses while at the same time providing them spiritual encouragement and articles. E-mail Jill at [email protected] for additional information or stop by her site at CWAHM.COM.
This article is free to reprint if the Author's Bio remains in tact. For additional articles, please contact Jill Hart.
CWAHM.COM

The Power of A Focused Business

I've enjoyed networking recently with Kelly McCausey of WAHM TALK RADIO. Actually, I call myself a Kelly groupie because I really enjoy what she has to say, the guests that she has on her radio show, and ALL of her materials. She's not specifically Direct Sales focused, but so many of her tips and ideas can be transferred to the Direct Sales field...and it's nice to get such a fresh perspective for someone who loves Moms who want to work at home as much as I do.

I just started listening to her audio THE POWER OF A FOCUSED BUSINESS and think it's wonderful. Great stuff. She includes in the cost of this 2 other audios that are equally great! Check them out:

Click Here for THE POWER OF A FOCUSED BUSINESS AUDIO

You'll be glad you did. And tell Kelly that Annette, her groupie, sent you!