Working from home.

Yup, I have that "best of both worlds" scenario, I work from home, in my office in the living room. But is it really best of both worlds? Is it really all its cracked up to be?

One of the big BIG cons of working from home it there really is no such thing as a day off. There really isn't. You can't take sick days, there is no one to take over for you.

I tried to take a day off last Thursday, just me and the twins, I wasn't feeling all that flash. Well actually I felt like crap warmed up for dinner. I thought screw it, for ONCE in my life I am going to do nothing, and go nowhere, I am not going to talk to anyone, I am not even going to get dressed.

I don't remember the last time I did that.

BUT by 9:30 it was all over, I had an invoice to prepare, received calls for help from various people and had organised 2 meetings for the following week. All this in my pajamas. I dealt with these things, then sat down on the floor with the twins to sing and watch some wiggles. The phone rings again, and it's another client wanting to know when the quote I had mentioned would be ready, I had the preliminary numbers but hadn't actually prepared the quote, so I sat down and did that. Then I cleaned the kitchen. Then I fed the babies as it was lunchtime.

Nap time for babies. I cleaned the living room. Vacuumed. Then I got another call from head office wanting to know something about something else, back to the computer to find the answers to those questions. Ten minutes later I am sitting at my computer having just hung up the phone thinking "wasn't this meant to be a day off? I was gunna hang out with my kids for a bit." I WAS still in my pajamas.

But then, with the major health issues we have had this year, I have been able to simply take that time and deal with those things and catch up on work in the evening. Or on weekends. I can go to my daughters school assemblies and watch her sing in the choir. Not that shes in the choir but hey - I could.

I do at times envy people who go to work, come home, forget about it, then collect their paycheck. But then we can charge an awful lot to the business. By paying fringe benefit tax on our cars as both are at times used for the business, we can pay for EVERYTHING to do with them on the business. Then claim the GST. Thats helpful. Especially with the price of petrol these days.

A portion of our rent, power and phone is covered by the business, as the office is run from the home.

It all helps.

But I don't get a salary.

Another downfall of working from home is that you need horse blinkers. You cannot SEE the mess and go clean it up, you must zone out of "home" and into "work" You can't let yourself get sidetracked, as its very easy to then get no work done.

One of the ways I have gotten around this is by having a fairly tight schedule during my work hours. I have my lunchtime allotted and I take it, that's when I can go clean the kitchen if I want to. Or the kids rooms, but come 1pm I am back at my desk. I have to be. There is always more to do there!

I have also set myself time to plan my week, every Monday morning I spend ten minutes planning my work week, and writing various to-do lists. I have an upright magazine holder on my desk which has four files inside labeled MONDAY WEDNESDAY FRIDAY and NEXT WEEK. At that moment I take the next week file, supposedly (but not always) the others are empty, and anything else on my desk, and I go through it, trash what I don't need, assign the rest to either one of those days or next week. And away I go. It works well for me. As I go on if I think of something that needs doing I write it on a scrap of paper and put it into one of those files too.

My other tried and true is my dairy. It's my bible. I write EVERYTHING in it, including my morning and evening routines, I usually write these on a daily basis. My morning and evening routines are the same every day, but I find them much much easier to stick to if I have written them into my dairy. I don't know why. Its also a good place to record moments, triumphs and other things. Like my weigh-ins, milestones the kids have reached, etc. Sometimes if I am in the mood I will write out my day.

If its not in my diary it probably wont happen.

Which brings me to the holidays, I love listening to my friends when the holidays are coming up, and they are all looking forward to cruisey mornings and days, not being rushed. I hate holiday times, its WORSE for me at holiday times, because I have an extra child to arrange care for, and my motivation goes plummeting into a very very deep hole and then the string I am barely clinging to it with breaks. And it takes me until about a week after school starts again to get it back.

Life goes on and I go with it. There are real pros and cons to running your own business, its not all its cracked up to be, and basically for at least the first few years you end up slogging you guts out for very little return. But for us, it does work, it means I am exactly where I need to be, and available when my kids need me. The business I am running has the potential to turn into a big business, which may very well run itself with me watching over it in a few years.

Hopefully.

x The Ramblings of Another Mother