Determining If A Work From Home Based Business Is For You
My husband is a work from home dad and whenever I tell people
that he gets to work from home the first response I get is how
wonderful it must be. A lot of people I talk with would love to
work from home and have a home based business. Some of their
ideas of people who work from home include sleeping in until you
are ready to get up, going to work in your pajamas, or not
having to work for a boss that controls your every move. Some of
these things are true for my husband's work, but the reality of
a work from home job and having a home based business sometimes
out weighs the luxuries.
There are definitely perks to a work from home job and running a
home based business, but the challenges should be looked at
understood before taking the plunge.
One of the most important qualities of a person who can work
from home effectively is SELF-MOTIVATION. A person who can
motivate themselves to work on something even if it is not the
work that they want to do at the moment will have a huge
advantage. Being able to go from one attention grabbing task to
another is important. It is very difficult to stay focused when
your attention is being pulled from what you need to do to want
you or someone else wants you to do. Additionally, running a
home based business also requires educating yourself continually
on the business you are involved. Watching TV sometimes seems
like an easier alternative than learning more about what you
need to do for your work from home business. To help with this
it is best to have a home based business you are interested in.
In other words, don't get involved with selling candles if you
have no interest in them.
Another important quality of a person who can work from home
effectively is that they are WELL ORGANIZED AND TASK ORIENTED.
Knowing what needs to be done and getting it done within a
reasonable amount of time are very important for managing a home
based business. There are a lot of activities vying for a
person's time (i.e., the laundry needs to be done, the bills
need to be paid, the yard needs to be cleaned up, etc.) This is
true even if you are working for someone else. However, when you
are working for someone else you are a little more conscience of
what needs to be done, because you don't want to lose your job.
When you work for yourself you need to establish priorities and
keep yourself accountable to do them.
Procrastination can be a huge enemy if you want to run a home
based business, because there is not a given deadline for
everything and if you continually put off the work that needs to
be done until it must be done you won't make a dime. Creating
deadlines and having another person hold you accountable may be
the extreme you need to go to keep yourself working.
Another enemy of running your own business is having too much to
do. A person who comes up with idea after idea for their home
based business can quickly become overwhelmed by what they want
to achieve. The best way to keep you moving in the right
direction is to write down your ideas and prioritize them. When
a new idea comes write it down to be reviewed later and work to
finish the project you are currently on.
Having a WORK-LIFE BALANCE is very challenging when running a
home based business. When you work outside of the home you can
escape from the workplace to the comfort of your home, but when
you work from home it is a lot harder to find a place to escape
to. Another challenge is knowing when to leave work, especially
when you have children at home who want you to play with them or
help them with their homework. Having a work-life balance can be
difficult because of the amount of work that needs to be done.
Even an established home based business person can find
themselves inundated by their work. Knowing when to stop and
take a brake is very important. One way to accomplish this is to
give yourself business hours or create a schedule and stick to
it or have one particular area to work in and another to live
in.
One of the biggest challenges when you work from home is the
FINANCIAL OBLIGATION that comes with having your own business.
It is difficult to not have a regular stream of income, because
most people have bills and debts that need to be paid regularly.
Some ways to help meet this challenge are to make more money
than you can ever need (not the best reality scenario), reduce
or eliminate the amount of debt you have and become very thrifty
with your money, or keep a part-time regular stream of income to
meet the regular bill need.
Anyone who runs a home based business needs to become a good
accountant. Not only do have to run a home based business but
you have to have a part-time work from home job. Documenting
your income and spending must become a habit. If you have a hard
time keeping receipts pay for everything with a credit card and
pay it off at the end of the month (make sure you have a
designated business only card). The best way to document your
spending is to use a program like Microsoft Money or Quicken.
The last factor for financial obligations, when running a home
based business, is taxes. When you work for someone else they
have to pay part of your social security and medicare taxes, but
when you work from home and for yourself you get to pay both
parts. You also have to pay taxes to the federal government
quarterly. Learning about taxes, tax write-offs and having an
accountant can help you with this factor.