Written by
August 10, 2017 0 Comments

5 Top Tips for Work From Home Success

Working from home is often the goal of many moms. It affords flexibility, more time with family, and a comfortable work environment. While it’s a goal that can lead to a big increase in the quality of your life, it also comes with challenges.

Between distractions and the lack of traditional work environment, it can take a while to find your footing in the home based working world. Read along for some best practices for a smooth work from home life.

Separate your spaces

While it might be comfortable to work on the couch for a while, it can lead to posture issues and a lack of focus. It’s better to establish an office or a separate space in your home specifically reserved for work. If you don’t have the extra space to make a bedroom into an office, you can set up a space at the dinner table, or place a small desk in another room.

It’s best to eliminate as many distractions as possible, while keeping the environment as “businesslike” as possible while being from home.

Get out of the house

Some people find home based work too isolating and mundane. If you start to feel this wya, it’s best to get out of the house as much as possible. You can even work from a coffee shop, park or office space daily. Even if you obtain a “work from home” job position, you might still look into something more social like a coworking space.

Coworking spaces combine people from a variety of industries and businesses into one location. This provides the social, office environment while allowing you to keep a flexible schedule and unique working arrangement.

Treat it like work

Working from home is still work! It can be easy to see it as a way to work less and spend time all day with family or friends, but unfortunately, work still needs to get done. Use the first few weeks to find a good balancing act between the two, and then be sure that you’re working when you should be.

Of course, the benefit of home based work is flexibility, so there will be times when you can use evening or early morning hours to work. Going outside of the schedule is more than permitted, but a routine work schedule (most days) makes for more effective, productive work.

Unplug

While you should treat your home based career like work, it’s also important to unplug! As home based workers, it can be tough to turn it off. Your computer is essentially your workspace, but it needs to be turned off once in awhile.

This is why it can be helpful to establish specific work times, so it’s not too tempting to work well into the evening. Use your off time for friends, family, and personal time, and work on a schedule that works best for you. Avoid the trap of working around the clock – it can cause unnecessary burnout, stress, and fatigue.

Set your boundaries

Boundaries are important when you work from home. Since you typically become the point of contact, person who’s there for appointments in the home, caregiver, and so on, it’s important to maximize your schedule and set boundaries so you can still get work done.

Working from home requires some forethought and effort between you, your employer, and your family, but it can be done. It’s a wonderful working arrangement that affords more flexibility and less missed good times, but ensure that you’re being smart about it and setting boundaries that keep you healthy, happy and productive.

Continue Reading

Written by
September 14, 2015 0 Comments

How Cloud Technology Makes Growing Your Home Business Easier

Last year, 23 percent of employed U.S. workers did some or all of their work from home, representing nearly one quarter of the American population, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About one in four remote workers are female, a Flex+Strategy Group survey found, and approximately the same percentage of women say they get most of their work done from home.

Meanwhile, more women than ever are starting their own businesses, with the number of female-owned firms increasing 68 percent since 2007, according to an American Express OPEN report. Taken together, these two trends help explain the growing number of moms who work at home.

A third factor fueling this trend is the cloud, which makes it easier than ever for moms to earn money from the comfort and privacy of their homes. If you’re working from home or running a home-based business, adopting cloud-based technologies can increase your efficiency and reduce your stress while saving you money.

Mobility and Flexibility

One way the cloud empowers your business is letting you move your office anywhere, says Luke Connoley of workplace innovation provider Unwork. In the days of desktops, a business computer had to reside at a single location in the workplace or in a home office, physically connected to the local network. With the cloud, you can work from anywhere you can bring a mobile device. You now have the flexibility of working from your home office, your living room, your dining room table, the local coffee shop or even the park where your kids play. You can work from anywhere and on any schedule that fits your needs.

Collaboration

The cloud’s mobile flexibility also makes it easier for you to collaborate remotely with other members of your team, no matter where they are. Instead of you having to share software on an office computer network in a single physical location, now any of your team members with a mobile device can access your company’s network and software services from anywhere in the world. For instance, Google Docs provides you with a full range of cloud-based business communication and collaboration tools, including email, video conferencing, calendar scheduling, document creation, file sharing and online storage.

Backup

The cloud provides small home-based businesses with superior backup services. Cloud backup services such as Mozy let you schedule periodic automatic backups, so you don’t have to worry about losing important files. You can also sync your backup to cover all of your devices and ensure that the latest versions of your files are always available throughout your network.

Global Customer Reach

The cloud lets you expand your company’s outreach beyond local prospects and customers to reach and interact with people anywhere in the world. For instance, in 2014, the country with the most Facebook users after the United States was India, followed by Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Kingdom. By using Facebook as a cloud marketing platform, you can efficiently promote your product or service to customers in any of these countries. The same applies to other popular social media sites that reside in the cloud, such as YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest.
Cloud tools, such as the Amazon Web Services platform, also let you deliver digital products, such as infoproducts, e-books, webinars and apps, to customers in any location. And when you need to field customer service inquiries, you can interact with your customers using cloud contact centers, live chat and Skype.

Cost

The bottom-line advantage of the cloud for home-based businesses is that it makes enterprise-quality hosting, software and data services affordable. Instead of paying premium prices for hardware equipment and software licenses, the cloud provides you with computer services scaled to your budget. For instance, for $5 a month, a small business can have its own virtual cloud server. For $5 per user per month, small businesses can use Office 365. For less than $120 a year, users can store 1 TB of data on Google Drive, or they can use Amazon Cloud Drive Unlimited for about $60 a year.

Continue Reading