While running a home-based business can be inexpensive and convenient, it can get tricky as you try to balance work and family life, sometimes from the same room. In order to ensure that your professional and personal lives don’t collide in the process, you should have a strategy or at least some techniques that help you manage your home-based business effectively.
We suggest you apply the following 7 tips:
1. Establish work hours. If you task yourself with working whenever you have a free hour or two, it won’t be long before you’re laboring morning, noon, and night. You’ll find that you’re much more productive when you set a work schedule that you honor. Share this work schedule with both clients and family, and ask them to respect that schedule. You must then maintain those boundaries, ensuring that your professional life doesn’t encroach on your personal life and vice versa.
2. Safeguard your time. While related to establishing work hours, safeguarding your time has more to do with helping others understand that self-employment doesn’t mean you have more free time than those with traditional jobs. Often you’ll find that friends and acquaintances expect you to volunteer your time more simply because they expect you to have more flexibility in your schedule. Unless that’s truly the case, you need to communicate otherwise, letting them know that your work schedule is just as sacred as those with 9-to-5 jobs.
3. Market. While word-of-mouth marketing can be effective, you need to realize that unless you take an active role in marketing your practice, you won’t have enough clients to keep you in business. Devise a marketing strategy, and budget some time and money for this cause.
4. Take breaks. Whether you’re running your practice full or part-time, you’ll quickly discover that unless you take a break, you will quickly experience burnout. Avoid this by giving yourself regular stints of rest and relaxation. You’ll find that taking regular vacations will help you rejuvenate your efforts, enabling you to better focus on your work when you’re open for business.
5. Organize your workspace. You’ll find that you work much more efficiently when your workspace is functional and well organized. Take the time to establish a practical filing system and install the necessary shelving to help you keep all your reference material accessible.
6. Don’t get sloppy. Just because you can wear your bunny slippers to work doesn’t mean you should. When working from home it can be tempting to become a little careless. You want to ensure that your work environment remains professional, even if it’s in your den.
7. Don’t perform too many favors. Everyone from your Uncle Phil to your long-lost Cousin Addy may start coming to you for special business favors. While it can be good business to exchange favors, giving them away too easily can hurt your practice. Always measure the benefits of doing business for free; are you gaining references, or perhaps a necessary service for yourself, in return?
Visit Universal Accounting Center (UAC)
There are countless ways Universal Accounting Center can help you better manage a successful practice. To find out how, visit our website and take a virtual tour. You’ll learn more about our programs, our products, and other services we offer. Don’t wait to find out how UAC could change your professional future for the better. Take a tour today!
