There are many businesses and free-lance work that can be done from home. Editing and writing, blogging, web design, website and social media administration, baking, fashion design, needlecraft and other crafts, video editing, and commercial gardening are just a few of projects that can be lucrative for the stay-at-home.
Working from home, however, involves its own unique challenges. How can one give his or her 100 per cent to the job when spouse and children are around and making their own demands on his or her time? How can one concentrate on the work at hand when the bed or the couch or television or food or some enjoyable leisure activity can be so tempting, being just a few feet away from where one is working?
Let’s face it. The home is not the most conducive place for working and thus the home-based entrepreneur needs to exercise more discipline and resolve to get the work done.
Rica Dalmacion
Rica Dalmacion, owner of Art and Soul Novelties, a craft and stationery business, is a mompreneur who seems to have mastered the tricky balancing act between a business, a husband, and two kids at home. Here’s how she does it.
“I let my children know there are certain times of the day they cannot bother me because I need to work,” she confides.
Morning, while the children are away at school, is when Dalmacion schedules her business meetings and client calls. Clients are also usually available at this time of the day, she has found out.
She has learned to set priorities by making a daily to-do list ranked in the order of importance. “Take charge by making sure you stick to the items you listed down, and then enjoy the pleasure of crossing things off your list as you move forward.”
Dalmacion advises other moms who are stay-at-home entrepreneurs to get help when they start getting overwhelmed with work and family responsibilities. Ask another family member to help out while you attend to your business, she says. If this is not possible, source help outside. Hire a yaya for your children. Or a cook or a gardener.
Toni Tiu
Toni Tiu, a regular writer at Philippine Online Chronicles and social-media strategist, shares how she was able to set up a conducive work space at home.
Create a fixed work space even if you can work anywhere with a laptop. Having that one dedicated space can help you focus more. Being there already signals your brain that it’s time to work. Other family members will know that when you’re at that one workspace, it would be best not to disturb you too.
Make it a point to have your coffee and water thermos on your work desk. This way, you don’t have to get up and trek to the kitchen for another cup of coffee or glass of water. That saves time.
If you want to keep your child close while you work, that can be done. My son has a set of cars he enjoys playing with while I type away on my computer table.. I like that he enjoys being beside me, and I get work done while enjoying his presence too.
Take breaks away from your workspace. Facebook doesn’t count as a break, nor does a round of Café World. Take a walk around the house. Play a round of games with your child. Have your coffee in the garden. Such breaks can help lessen anxiety and improve your productivity.
Alina Co
Alina Co, a freelance writer-editor and video producer in her 20s, does not have a husband and children yet. Still, she finds too many distractions at home.
“I have made it a point not to work in my own bedroom where the soft mattress seems to constantly beckon. Instead, I have made a workplace for myself at our den where I can sit upright.” She simulated an office space in that spot at home — with shelves, books, a mugful of pens, a cork board, a printer.
Sometimes, she would feel too confined. “Cabin fever,” she calls it. To get a whiff of outdoor air, she would sometimes (not too often) take a 15-minute walk to a coffee shop a few blocks away, lugging her laptop. “It’s air-conditioned, there’s fee wifi, there are other freelancers around for quiet company.” Nursing a cup of latte, she’d feel energized. She would often walk home feeling she had been very productive.
Photo: “new desk” by Andrew Mason, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved