Legitimate Home Business: Factors Against Working From Home

* Go half way with office administration

Starting a home office at your dining room table isn’t a good idea, and neither is making a half-hearted commitment to turning a guest room into an actual office. If you don’t treat the office seriously, it’s more likely that you won’t take your job seriously either. Create a separate space and dedicate it as the office. You will feel better and your work will benefit from that decision.

* Succumbing to workaholism syndrome

If, while working in an office, you had a tendency to stay there until work was done, operating from home is a workaholic’s dream come true. With the office just a few rooms away, there’s a temptation to “do one last thing” after dinner or over the weekend. It’s important to be professional in your business, but it’s also important that you don’t let the office become your new home. Set hours, try to manage your workflow around those hours, then close the door and put up the “closed” sign.

* Family problems

Many women see working at home as the answer to two problems: earning a living and raising a family. If it was easy to mix kids and work, parents would have been doing it in their business offices long ago. That said, it’s not entirely impossible either. The trick is balance. You can’t afford to be at your children’s beck and call, but you certainly don’t want them to feel totally ignored.

Rushing from the office to untangle toys and do laundry every hour will soon turn your working world upside down. Closing the door and ignoring the family will have an equally unfortunate effect. Obviously, daycare is an option. Consider it for the days when you could schedule your most critical task. On the days you set aside for errands, such as paying bills, bookkeeping, Internet research, etc., you may find it easier to adjust to the presence of family.

* Lack of certain office skills

By working for other companies, you connect others with jobs that complement yours. As your own entrepreneur, in your own business office, you have many more tasks besides the specific “bring the bacon home” ones. He will be responsible for executive and marketing decisions, financial and administrative details and deadlines, as well as front office and administrative work. Until your business is profitable enough to employ other people, it’s all up to you.

This is where a business plan makes sense. You need to calculate the details of how you will charge for your products or services. Be careful when calculating the “cost of doing business,” which includes clerical and administrative stuff as well. Add a “cheat factor” and some profit. Assuming you’ll work 40 hours a week, you’ll fixate on making a living in 30 hours, and then use the other 10 hours to take care of other parts of the business: marketing, promotion, billing, accounting, and business. wandering.

If you feel like you lack the skills to juggle all of those things, or have no interest in becoming your own secretary, you may not be cut out for a home business. But if you want to give it a try, you can certainly learn what it takes to start and maintain a home-based business.