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NetFaqs in This Article
• Kids Schmids
• Don't Work Non-Stop
• Promote Your One-ness
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How to succeed working
at home
when you have kids climbing all over
you.
...having
a website from TheWebsiteDistrict lets you work at home
successfully!
by Dr. Kevin Nunley
I get a BIG chuckle out of
experts who preach the
joys of working from home. Magazines often feature a
photo of a nicely dressed model with her full attention
focused on a client on the phone. Her equally nicely-dressed
child quietly explores an educational toy on the floor
beside her.
That's never the way it works
at my house. As I write this from home, my 15 year-old
is bouncing a basketball off the outside of my office,
my 12 year-old is blaring her new Back Street Boys CD,
the kindergartner has just let the neighbor's dog into
the living room, and my toddler is trying to climb onto
my shoulders while attempting to shut the computer off.
Experts advise this isn't
the way a successful work-at-home business is supposed
to operate. The professional home-worker is told to
make clients think she is in a big, plush office in
a mirror-covered professional building. "Never allow
noise from kids and pets and never answer the phone
'hello.' Clients won't take you seriously," they write.
Uh oh, I'm in trouble.
Let's be realistic for a
second. Of the six million North Americans who work
from their houses, I'll bet more than half have noisy
kids, dogs, and unfolded laundry competing for their
attention. Yet, studies routinely show work-at-homers
often get as much or more done than those in the office.
Here are a few ideas to help
you succeed with a home business when you have lots
of family responsibilities to deal with at the same
time:
1. Don't worry about kids
interrupting a phone call. Being there for family is
cool these days. The vast majority of business people
wish THEY were at home with their kids.
More often than not, when
a small voice starts demanding a popsicle in the middle
of an important negotiation, the client on the other
end will be delighted. "Are you working at home? How
neat! Isn't it wonderful that you can be there for your
kids," your client will say.
2. Working non-stop with
full concentration is only for people locked in a corporate
office. Get used to working in a start-and-stop fashion.
When you see your work is about to be interrupted, don't
stop at a natural place. Stop in the middle. It will
help you get re-started when time allows.
The feeling you MUST be constantly
productive at all times is a recent invention of our
industrial societies. The majority of the world's people
are much more laid back. Take a little more time to
get a project finished. Oddly, your productivity will
increase.
3. If you are a firm of one,
promote your one-ness to the world. Every customer wants
to feel like they can talk to the person in charge.
That's never a problem for people who do business with
you.
Think of all the big corporations
that strive to be identified with their founder. Microsoft
has Bill Gates, KFC has the Colonel, and Wendy's has
Dave. They spend millions to insure you identify their
mammoth corporation with a single individual in charge.
4. Get over the idea that
TV is bad for kids. It is a popular, healthy, worthwhile
activity when used wisely in moderate doses. Most of
TV's criticism is perpetrated by people who sell books.
There are a lot of terrifically educational TV programs
and videos that kids love to watch. Plan to get a project
underway while the kids (we'll include spouses, too)
engage in some quality TV consumption.
A few hundred years ago people
ALWAYS worked with their kids under foot. It was only
when business became dominated by factories that workers
were forced to leave their children at home (and even
then, it took at least 100 years to make workers change).
You certainly CAN be a success
working at home while taking care of children--even
if your children are rowdy, noisy, and demanding. The
articles I've written (which are read by 1 million people
each week) were all written with various children sleeping
on my lap, pulling my hair, or trying to delete the
file.
I earn a good living working
at home and YOU CAN TOO! Just don't expect me to always
pick up the phone when you call. It's not that I don't
want to talk with you, but probably that my 2 year-old
has just swiped my keys and is heading for the garage.
Kevin Nunley provides marketing
advice and copy writing for businesses and organizations.
He can be reached at www.DrNunley.com. Click
here to promote your business to thousands of Media!
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