Many of my readers know that I’ve set up my online businesses so that they’ll be up and running for when I retire.  I have this blog, my Mama Mentor blog, as well as my Virtual Assistant business and my Boutique Moomette’s Magnificents Olde Towne Shoppes where I specialize in hand crafted artisan items.  Additionally, I’m an eBay Power Seller at Moomette’s Magnificents.

My oldest daughter also started her own Virtual Assistant business, and has had to adjust her working hours in order to take care of ‘Lil Moomette, and my 6-week old grandson.

Mothers who earn their living working from home often find themselves the envy of those who hold down “real” jobs, but unless you are one of those moms making your living working from home, you probably aren’t aware of the challenges involved.

So, if you’re thinking of giving up your job to work from home, or maybe you just want to test the waters to see if it’s do-able, here are several factors to take into consideration.

First and foremost, you have to decide what exactly you are going to do to earn money as a home business owner.

Being computer literate certainly opens up many more possibilities, but there are other ways to work from home as well. Your interests and talents should be considered as well as how much of an income you are hoping for.

If you are going to work from home, you should probably be the kind of person who enjoys being somewhat in control.

This means that you need to be comfortable with making decisions and planning your time. With a job, these elements are something you normally don’t have to worry about as it’s already decided and planned for you. As your own boss however, these responsibilities fall squarely on your shoulders. Your decisions directly affect your home business and in turn your bottom line profit.

You must be flexible.

Sometimes you’ll be forced to change and adapt to situations. If you get a phone call to pick up your sick child from school and a deadline is looming, you may need to work through your night out with the girls or forego your eight hours of sleep. On the other hand, if it’s a beautiful, sunny day and the garden beckons, you have the ability to shuffle your day and spend some time puttering in the great outdoors or anything else you may be itching to do.

Time management skills are another extremely crucial factor to work at home success.

There will be no time card to punch, no boss telling you what to do or how much time to spend on a specific task, but you will need to decide how to divide up your working hours so that the majority of your time is spent on completing money earning tasks.
You will have to be able to keep your attention focused for blocks of time. This is one of the most challenging aspects of managing a home business, particularly if there are children present while you are attempting to work. Although it can be difficult, it is possible with a bit of forethought and lots of patience.

Organization goes hand in hand with time management.

Setting up your working space, maintaining a supply of needed materials, using a planner to do both long range and daily planning, and having a bookkeeping system in place, are a few of the important organizational tasks facing the work at home business owner. For a work at home mom, you’ll have to manage and organize your business as well as your family, so be prepared for double the planning.
The nice part about setting up a home business is that it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing type of venture. If you’ve never experienced working at home, why not try setting aside a few hours here and there to see if it’s really for you? This will allow you to try your hand at it before making the major commitment of quitting your current J-O-B.

For more information to get you on the right track, visit Moms Talk Network and Sparkplug University.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 5:42 pm and is filed under VA, baby boomers, blog, boomer, business, career opportunities, e-commerce, ebay, internet, internet marketing, sahm, wahm, wahm ecommerce, wahm tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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