There is a lot of fun stuff in my work at home venture! I mean A LOT. And I want to be OK with that…

If the social element of employment is a big factor for you, it is something to weigh carefully, but there are definitely ways to stave off loneliness in your work at home, working alone venture. Here are three of my favorites:

- have scheduled contact with a business mentor or coach. Yes, it is business-focused, but hopefully very fun and inspiring as well. My business model has this element built right in with what is called “upline” support and it’s great.

- meet regularly with a team of fellow business owners to encourage one another, and brainstorm ideas for success (this can be reminiscent of team office meetings as long as you’re not in competitive businesses!). I so appreciate being able to do this.

- plan regular outings, both business-related and non-business, during regular business hours. Hey, it’s one of the perks of managing your own schedule!

My typical response to this situation is to hunker down and barrel through. I can be very self-disciplined and persistent. I get “too much” done, but at what cost? I was ill-tempered. I didn’t feel the best when it was all said and done.

And you know what? At the end of the day, there was STILL a mile-long list of stuff that could be done!

This last realization made me mad at first, but after a few seconds, I appreciated the irony and the great humor it was offering me as long as I’m willing to laugh at myself.  In one sense, there will ALWAYS be too much for any work at home mom to do. That’s one of the beauties of our role as mothers…we are always wanted, always needed, can always be helpful. Motherhood is perpetual.

And, like any job, working at home can also come with a seemingly endless stream of projects and tasks. SO, it seems to me I am back to prioritization and keeping first things first. Because I’m a pragmatic kind of gal, I like to remind myself of the Covey-Franklin planner method of listing and categorizing the daily things to do: “A” for first priorities, “B” for second-tier items and “C” for stuff that can actually wait until another day.

Then numbering the A’s, with 1. being the first one to do, 2. the second one, etc. And doing the same with the B’s and C’s.

Doing this scheme at the outset means I only have to think one time about what to do next. And it means if I get through my A’s, I have been very successful! Of course, it takes practice and discipline not to mark everything as A’s .

Once again, I’m acknowledging that I have too much to do, and probably always will have too much to do. But if I let it affect my mood and color my day, I am a silly goose! It’s up to me to utilize my self-discipline and persistence to wrestle my to-do list to the ground and realistically prioritize what of the endless possibilities are for today.

Hold on – that sounds rather adversarial. Wrestle my to-do list to the ground? Call on discipline to get through each day? Hmmm…I want to think further on this approach. Do I want to face each day as a foe to be conquered? Do you?  Stay tuned!

In my own work at home venture, I also offer the opportunity to join my team and be mentored in the development of your own home-based business. And I’ve probably sounded, at time, like a bandwagon master myself! But, something I’ve come to realize is that if you do jump on a bandwagon, there is always another parade…and it may be a glitzier, bigger parade. What if you’re on the wrong wagon?!?!

All this is to say, there are some basic fundamentals that should go into making a work at home decision, and we would probably all be well served to pay attention to them. If you think about it, you’re making a decision that will impact your entire life in many ways, and (hopefully) for a long time. In making a decision of that caliber, you owe it to yourself to do your “due diligence” in researching your work at home options.

So, what do you research? Well, I’m talking primarily here about opportunities to represent companies or use online systems through your own home-based business that is affiliated with an established “parent company”. Here are some things to consider:

• Market potential – looking to the future, how well-positioned is the parent company in terms of what it offers?
• Time commitment – is the amount of time you’re asked to invest commiserate with the return you will receive (heed that old adage, if it sounds too good to be true….it probably is!)?
• Product Quality – is there independent, trustworthy proof that the product(s) and/or service being offered are as good as they are claimed to be?
• Success rate of other workers at home affiliated with this company – are there actual people who have achieved what you’re being told it’s possible to achieve?
• Monetary Investment – are you asked to invest an appropriate amount of money to begin your home-based business? And what does that investment get you? (Either too much or too little initial investment engenders suspicion.)
• Parent company history – how long has the company been in business and how secure is it financially?
• Income Potential – how do the numbers compare with other options in terms of your income potential, both in the short term and in the long term?
• Parent company philosophy – is the company committed to values that resonate with your own values?

How do you get answers to these questions? The online presence of the parent company may (and should!) address many of them. And beyond that, there should be a person to ask, either from the parent company or a fellow home-based business owner affiliated with the same company.

So, what if these sources give the same “pitch” that you’re trying to discern? Well, then it becomes incumbent upon you to sort hype from fact. It may be a simple matter of your impression of your info source. If you make a grounded, thorough assessment, I bet you’ll be able to know what is a good fit for you.

In the long run, you’ll be very happy you took the time to consider things like these before “jumping”. By all means, join the work at home parade. Just take your time in selecting the right wagon!

• More women than men have received a graduate education and women’s gains in educational attainment have significantly outpaced those of men.

• Yet the pay gap between men and women persists, with women earning about 75% of their equally educated male counterparts.

• Female-headed familes have the lowest family earnings of all family types.

• Women are more likely than men to be in poverty.

The right work at home arrangement can be a terrific way to address these realities for women!  As an entrepreneur with her own home-based business, a woman can be equally rewarded for her professional aptitude. At the same time, she can experience greater flexibility to achieve the balance that we women are often looking to create in our lives!!

*From:Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being. U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration; Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget; White House Council on Women and Girls. March 2011.

I can be in the middle of a detailed e-mail to a customer when my ten year old blurts out a “pressing” question. I will ask him to wait until I finish what I’m doing before I answer his concern, but then, while I shift into mom mode, the creative juices that were stimulated by that client communication are shunted into the holding arena, where they seem to slowly dissipate. So, when I return to entrepreneur-status, the ideas aren’t as sharp, aren’t quite as quick to take form, as before the mom activity. I had had a great idea of a next step in my business, but now it seems slightly fuzzy. Does that ever happen to you?

Am I aggravated? Maybe – just a little. But that is exactly WHY I choose to be a work at home mom, and I’m well-served to remember that. I want to be the one to address my child’s concerns, and I forgo a traditional career where I can focus during work hours more exclusively on the advancement of my business because I have consciously made that choice.

Of course, some work at home situations lend themselves to this switching back and forth more readily than others. In fact, one of my early work at home endeavors was doing professional research from home. But it required long stretches of deep concentration and uninterrupted work. So, with young children, it wasn’t feasible unless there was someone else available to provide childcare. It just wasn’t the work at home fit that I wanted, and I was very happy to later find an option that allowed the transition to mom mode as needed. These interruptions still impede the flow of work, of course, but I’m very happy to have found work at home that can survive these interruptions.

I know one mom with a busy, active home-based business who even posted this above her desk: “Interruptions Are My Job”!

I am so very blessed to be able to tell you that I reached out to my husband for help. And he stepped right up to the plate. He took on ALL the evening driving for a week (taking kids to events), did the grocery shopping, ran my errands and responded promptly to all other requests for assistance. He knows I don’t expect him to do this every week on top of his own more-than-full-time work, and he was willing to help me out of a tight spot by temporarily putting more on his own plate.

So, I’d encourage you to allow loved ones to help you when you are in danger of overload. Sometimes a short, temporary reprieve can allow you to get things under control again.

And what if you don’t have any family or close friends to ask? It may be in your children’s best long-term interest to hire some short-term care (or, even better yet, temporarily hire out some of the work at home tasks especially if they are things you don’t particularly enjoy…every position has some of those .

Overload can happen for the work at home mom. Don’t let it become a permanent state!

For instance, even though I may be working in another room, when my brood cracks up about something funny, I don’t miss the moment. I can slip into the living room and check out the cause of the mirth. Or when one of my boys has a question about something that seems important to him, I am there. Even if I can’t answer it at the moment (because I’m working), I can note it and address it at a mutually workable time.

Yep, I love being at home with my family. And I’m so grateful for the work at home option that makes that possible!

If I worked in corporate America, I would have called in the IT department, or picked up the phone to talk to a trainer. But I’m a work at home mom. I AM the trainer. And the IT department. So, do I quit?

Not likely. First of all, who knows whether IT personnel or trainers or manual writers or application designers really could have done any better. Boy, does it feel good to remember that. Secondly, I am not going to let a little (OK, a big) bump in the road detour me from this terrific path as a home-based business owner. And, of course, these kinds of difficulties build character (or some such positive quality!) and I will endeavor to find the good in this situation.

Quitting points for us work at home moms (and all the rest of us!)? Sure, we all have them. But what do we do with them?