Working At Home – The Importance Of A Schedule For Work At Home Mothers
For stay at home mothers with young children, starting a
home based business means they can stay at home to care for
their kids and still make an income at home. Working at
home enables you to have a completely flexible routine but,
in order for this to work, you need to set yourself a
workable schedule when you start your home based business.

The first thing to do is to devise a schedule for each day
of the week. This needs to be a written schedule so that
you know at a glance what you are supposed to be doing at
any given hour of the day and nothing gets overlooked.
Having a schedule means you know exactly what you are going
to do when you complete each task; there is no time wasted
by sitting and trying to decide which task you should
tackle next.

The beautiful thing about being your own boss is that you
can do what you want when you want. However, that also
means you have to bear the consequences if something is not
done. As an oversight could potentially cost you money,
your schedule needs to be as detailed as possible. Of
course, the first items to go on the schedule will be fixed
commitments such as taking the children to school or
nursery or other activities. This gives you the framework
into which you can slot playtime with the kids, going out
with your partner, pampering yourself, shopping for
groceries, doing household chores and (last but not least)
the time you will devote to your home based business.

It is worth spending some time drafting your timetable
carefully. It will probably take several drafts before you
come up with a fully workable schedule but the more time
you spend on the first draft, the sooner you will achieve
the finished timetable.

As your first step, write down what you want to achieve in
your home business over the next year – for example, debt relief. Then break that
goal down into smaller steps that you need to reach on a
monthly basis to get you to where you want to be in 12
months’ time. Next, divide your monthly goals into weekly
goals. Finally (the nitty-gritty), work out your daily
schedule. Your daily schedule should have slots for
dealing with email, filing, making phone calls, meeting
customers, attending seminars and anything else to do with
your business. As well as the business-related slots,
there needs to be time to spend with the kids and for
performing household duties, plus some free time which you
can fill as you wish.

You should immediately cultivate the habit of making your
work fit into the time slots allowed. If you spend longer
than allocated on any one part of your business, another
part is bound to suffer. Your schedule will have some
spare time built in but that is supposed to remain spare
time which can be used as a buffer against unforeseen
events. If you allow it to be swallowed up by day to day
matters, your spare time will be lost forever and your
timetable will cease to function as soon as even a minor
emergency crops up.

Your schedule will also need to be varied to take into
account the different family activities through school term
time and vacations; the spare time built into your
timetable will make this easier to accommodate.

Remember: “Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan”.
If you plan properly, your schedule will not be a
straightjacket; it will be more like those famous pajamas
supposedly worn by everyone working at home.

—————————————————-
Elaine Currie is the owner of the Free Work At Home
Directory at http://www.huntingvenus.com and author of the
book Ezine Article Writing – 10 Steps To Success. You can
download the book free of charge in pdf format at:
http://www.huntingvenus.com/free_ezine_articles_writing_eboo
k.shtml

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.