Set Boundaries for your family

One of my favorite parts of working from home is that I don’t have an office outside our house to go to. What is one of the most stressful parts of working from home?  Yep, you guessed it.  I don’t have an office outside our house to go to.

While I usually love showing up to work in my pajamas, taking a nap in the afternoon, and being able to fix myself my favorite mid-morning snack, working from home can be very stressful when my family doesn’t realize that I am not available during normal business hours.  When my family wants me to deliver forgotten items, wait for the cable man, or let the kids play Club Penguin on my laptop, I find it, frankly, a little disrespectful.

I’ve found, though, that with proper training, your family will happily (most of the time) adhere to your work rules, if you follow these suggestions:
Make the rules concrete.

Set specific guidelines. These can be simple to understand guidelines like “You may not come in Mommy’s office when the door is closed” which even the youngest children can understand.  You can set a more specific schedule for older children such as “I am not available between 10-2, Monday through Friday.” The more specific your rules, the more readily everyone will abide by them.
Reward them for compliance.

Bribery works! In extreme cases, I will readily agree to play a despised board game, take the gang for ice cream, or let someone else control the TV remote in exchange for an hour of uninterrupted work time. Don’t be afraid to reward your family for a job well done. If you have a specific project that you need to get done, remind your family of the rules, and let them know that you appreciate their understanding by giving them something to look forward to. Help them be a success, too!
Refuse to break the code.

No means no, not maybe. If you give in to whining or pleading, you’re only training your kids (or spouse) to whine and plead. Not a good thing. Before you give in, ask yourself what you’re training your family to believe about your ability to set limits. Then act accordingly. Teaching children to respect the rules, your rules, is a lesson for life.
Hold up your side of the bargain.

If you tell the kids you’ll be off the computer at 5 PM and spend some time playing Duck Duck Goose, then you’d better be goosing it up at 5:01. Pushing out the timeline or going back on your agreement is no good. This only sets the stage for an argument. The next time you insist on a specific rule regarding your office time, you will have much less leverage as you try to defend your position. Your word is your bond – keep it.
Be available when you’re off the clock.

If you want your family to respect your work time and space, then you need to respect family time. No checking the BlackBerry at the dinner table. No taking business calls in the middle of Junior’s school play. No sneaking off to your computer to send a few emails when the rest of the family is gathered around the TV, watching SpongeBob. When you’re “away” from the office, make sure you’re really away. You set the rules – you need to follow them, too.

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Whatever you do, don’t lose control

If you think back over the most stressful times in your life – illness for yourself or a family member, loss of a job or major client, a death in the family – I would venture to say that there’s a common thread through all of these stressful times: Lack of control.

Because home-based entrepreneurs see themselves as pioneers, we pride ourselves on our take-charge attitudes and get-it-done approach to life. Therefore, not being in charge of what’s happening can cause us a great deal of anxiety. We want to fix things, now. When we can’t fix things, or we don’t know how to fix things, we can become very stressed and even freak out a bit.

When faced with a situation where you’re not in control, here are three ways you can maintain an even keel, despite the foul weather:

Find something you CAN control.

When the world is spinning away from you, it can feel like there’s nothing you can control. Not true! In any situation, there’s SOMETHING you can control. Let’s say your major client is having financial difficulties. You may think you are at the whim of their financial ups-and-downs, but you can start regaining a feeling of control by searching out other clients to replace this financially strapped client if they would need to part ways with you. Or you could get your own finances in order and do some proactive belt-tightening so that the loss of one client doesn’t send your world into a tailspin.
You are NOT helpless, and the sooner you find something to control, the sooner you’ll feel less anxious about the future.
Focus on the moment.

Stress comes when we stop focusing on the here and now and start ruminating over the horrible things we wish hadn’t happened yesterday, or about the horrible things we fear will happen tomorrow. If we ground ourselves in the present moment, we find we’re still alive, still functioning, and still able to make decisions. Once we lose site of that fact, though, the stress seeps in. When your thoughts start spinning out of control, gently reel them back in. Take a few deep breaths, remind yourself that you are okay, right now, and then find something productive to do in this moment to protect against what you fear.
This may be difficult for some people to do because they honestly don’t believe they can control their thoughts. It’s true that when our mind is spinning out of control, thoughts do seem to just keep popping into your head. One method health professionals use to quiet discomforted patients is with visualization and repeating positive phrases. This actually does help to quiet the mind so you can gain control, once again, of your thought processes. Once you have quieted your mind, you can choose to focus on the here and now and take back control.
Remind yourself of your expertise and experience.

Stress also comes when we are afraid we can’t handle the horrific scenarios we’ve created for ourselves when we doubt our competence. If our client goes away, then what? If the economy tanks further, then what? If our website crashes, then what? If we knew we’d be okay in the future because we have the expertise to handle these situations, the stress about the future would be a thing of the past.

One tip to combat that stress is to remind yourself of all the tough circumstances you’ve already navigated through successfully. Think about situations you went through in the past and how you handled them. While past success is no guarantee of future performance, as they say in the stock market, it still is a pretty good indication of how things will turn out.

I laugh at the thought of time management

Part 3 of No Stress Series

Setting your priorities and sticking to them is a great step towards reducing your stress, but it won’t help much if you don’t have time to finish all the other menial tasks that are involved in running an at-home business. Items like billing, filing, ordering ink for your printer, and a million other little things that pile up over time still need to be done.

Let’s look at five methods to help you keep better track of where your time goes, and keep on top of your schedule:
Write everything down.

Famous productivity expert David Allen, author of Get It Done, recommend getting your to-dos out of your brain and onto paper. I can attest that this method works! When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I have found one of the greatest ways to de-stress is to sit down and write out everything I have to do that’s got my head spinning. Whether those are big projects, little five-minute tasks, or anything, it all goes down on paper as my brain is churning out the words. When I can actually see my thoughts on paper, I can start sorting and prioritizing.

Keep track of how long a task takes you.

It’s a common psychological trick we play on ourselves – we overestimate how long it takes to complete unpleasant tasks, and we underestimate how long we spend on pleasant items. Get real by writing down the actual time it takes you to do things like file papers, log receipts, and any other tedious task. Then you have a concrete estimate the next time you think, “Oh, that’s going to take all day!”
Minimize interruptions.

Turn off your email alert noise, put your phone ringer on mute, and clear your desktop before you jump into a task that requires concentration. Fewer interruptions and distractions allow you to get in that concentrating “sweet spot” where you’re humming along and working at a pleasant clip. That means you’ll get your work done faster and be less stressed. Constant interruptions ultimately result in needing to re-prioritize your day, over and over and over again. You can see how the stress you feel just keeps escalating without minimizing the interruptions each day.
Break down large projects.

Big projects – website overhauls, writing reports, planning marketing campaigns, creating a newsletter – can be overwhelming. When faced with a large project, break it up into tasks you can complete in one sitting, preferably in under 20 minutes. That way, instead of looking for a free afternoon to tackle the project all at once (which you’ll never get!), you just need to squeeze in 20 minutes here and there until the project is completed. I don’t know anyone who can’t find 20 minutes, but ask an entrepreneur to block out 8 hours for a project, and you’ll receive in turn a stunned glare.
Take advantage of “lost” time.

Our days are full of five minute breaks between activities. We call these “dead” time. You may be sitting in car-line at your child’s school, or in line at the pharmacy, or even waiting for a pot of water to boil. There you are, simply waiting for something to happen. Keep a notebook with a running list of tasks that can be completed in 5 minutes or less. Schedule an appointment, call a friend to set up a lunch date, clean out your voice mail, file your nails – anything that you know you need to do but don’t get around to doing.

Now when you have “dead” time, glance down at your notebook with the list of 5 minute tasks and start at the top.  Work your way down the list every time you find yourself with a few free minutes. You’ll be amazed at how much you accomplish when you’re ready to go!

The power of time management can have you thinking you can do it all now!  You are Superwoman!  You are Supermom!  But, before you go leaping those tall buildings, stop and take a deep breath.  There are still things beyond our control.  Yes, we can do a lot, but we can’t do it all.  Life sometimes gets in the way, even of the most on-task entrepreneur.  Let’s take a look now at how to recover from situations beyond our control.

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No Stress Blog

Post Series

Working from home is sort of like Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities – it can be the best of times, and it can be the worst of times. At the best of times, being a work-at-home mom is empowering, liberating, profitable and stressful. At the worst of times, working at home is anxiety-ridden, stifling, and stressful. Notice a common denominator?

It’s the stress.  Stress can – quite literally – kill you. Stress during the best of times and stress during the worst of times is still stress.  Knowing how to recognize and be proactive in dealing with stress is an important part of a successful career path for any work-at-home mompreneur.

This stress relieving blog post series is written to address some of the greatest sources of stress for work-at-home moms, and to share with you what you can do to alleviate, and learn from, your stress.

Whether you’re anxious because you’re struggling to establish yourself in your industry, or you’re stressed because you’re so much in demand you’re being pulled in too many directions, I hope you’ll find in this stress relieving blog post series as a way to make your life less stressful. After all, it’s impossible to enjoy success – or your path to success – if you’re constantly strung out, wringing your hands, and suffering from stress-related exhaustion or illness.

Take a deep breath, relax, and read through this material. Wherever you are in your business and professional life, I can help you figure out where you can make some adjustments to make your life  better and to minimize stress.

When you work from home, stress is everywhere. It’s in your success as you become more in demand, it’s in your lack of success as you try to figure out how to make a go of your venture. When you’re stressed out, you become less effective as your energy is sapped away from your goals and diverted to fighting fires. If you could minimize these stressors, you’d be better able to focus on your long-term business goals.

In my experience, there are nine main stress points that home-based entrepreneurs and mompreneurs face:

1.You’re stressed because you don’t set priorities.
2.You’re stressed because you don’t manage your time efficiently.
3.You’re stressed because a lot of what you do is outside your control.
4.You’re stressed because you can’t say no.
5.You’re stressed because you don’t set boundaries for your family.
6.You’re stressed because you get sucked into the TV/e-mail/blog-reading trap.
7.You’re stressed because you don’t delegate.
8.You’re stressed because you don’t take care of yourself or your health.
9.You’re stressed because you don’t have a support system.
If you were to rate yourself on each point, you’d likely score higher on some than others. You may be a great delegator, but you’re not so good at setting boundaries. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, based on our experience and personality. Even if you answer “yes” to only one of these stress points, you may suffer from more anxiety than someone who has answered “yes” to numerous stressors. Each of us responds differently to outside pressures and stress.

Let’s take a look at each one of these in greater detail, to see where some of your personal stress points are. We’ll also take a look at how you can make adjustments and get on the road to increased productivity and a more enjoyable work life. The first stop? Taking a look at your priorities. Stay tuned…

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When a stay-at-home business mom wants to reach a wide audience, she can turn to a social radio network such as http://www.blogtalkradio.com or other podcast outlets (seehttp://www.podcastdirectory.com for a list of sites). These outlets offer several different ways to spread the word: as a caller to a show, as a a guest on a show or as a host.

As a caller to a show she can let the listeners know she’s out there and available, but it’s hard to let friends, family and business contacts know beforehand.

In order to be a guest she only needs to find her category, click on a host’s name to get to an About page, which will probably have contact info. Once she’s accepted for the show, she can e-mail and Facebook blast the time and place of the interview to her client list, friends and family. If the listener registers with blogtalkradio and posts a picture, it will appear on the host’s page as either a listener or fan. The show is archived and always available to future audiences.

The corporate mom dropout can check the show’s audience by noting the number of listeners and fans. If it’s a small number, maybe there’s a different site to promote her business. I’ve appeared on several shows, and a recent talk about my book, Corporate Mom Dropouts, increased my book sales by 40 percent.

Finally, if she can find the time, the business mom can host her own show. The site is easily set up for the entrepreneurial mom to get on the air. All she needs is a computer and a phone. Also, it’s another way to increase SEOs. And it’s free.

When working on a marketing plan, the home-based business mom has to wring every drop from the social media for the greatest possible exposure, and talk radio is a good way to go.