Work-At-Home Busyness!
It’s the future they said! Yeah, right. Three decades later we know a little about it!
he dangers of ‘working-at-home aren’t blatantly obvious, nor can they be avoided intuitively. You’ll get blindsided by them if you aren’t forewarned. The emotional ‘drive’ to get yourself out of your cubicle, and into a home-based business ‘can’ end, for some, in divorce and bankruptcy. Some of the best decisions I’ve heard about ‘launching’ a home-based business came from couples that decided ‘NOT’ to take the leap into self-employment, or to work with each other as partners – MLM or other-wise.
On the other hand, I’ve worked from home for at least 25 years. Angelina and I have done this as a couple for the last 11 years. We wake up from time to time wondering just what it is that we DO? It’s so much a part of who we are. We love getting out of bed when we’re rested after snuggles, rather than ‘arrested’ by an alarm. We love working with great people around the world. We take time from our tasks to make healthy meals, to walk and play outdoors, and we enjoy the freedom to stay up late on a project if we’re inspired.
Here’s what I mean. These are photos from one of my ‘perches’ that I work from. I’m discussing the upcoming week(s) of our workshops with Angelina – a business meeting between the ‘marketing’ and ‘production’ legs of ‘Enterprising Couples’. She’s lying down, making her points. I’m… listening.
Just a moment, I’ll be right back…
No, we’re not a huge enterprise locked into drive-time issues and compensation packages, however we are authentically enterprising and live life fully each day. Technically we’re ‘social entrepreneurs’ and we LOVE what we do.
Some Work-At-Home ‘Unknowns’
If interruptions bug you… you’re in trouble.
Yes, you can ignore the incoming calls, Skype and text messages and retreat to your ‘cave’ - like hanging a ‘closed’ sign on the door of your shop, but that won’t last long. You’ll be back working for ‘the man’ really soon because interruptions are a part of your...
Just a moment, I’ll be right back…
…job duties. Client A just needed a bit of direction… and Angelina needed some clarity as to ‘why’ I ‘perk up’ when Client ‘A’ interrupts… sheesh.. (emotional pegging going on). This leads me to another one of the work-at-home challenges.
Choose your clients carefully
Pouring your heart and talent into another person’s business can be very rewarding and it can also cause trouble when imbalanced. When life and business cohabitate, for some it’s very easy to take on the emotional wave of a client, letting your own issues leak into conversations with them at the expense of personal privacy or your partner. If you’re selling invisible ‘consulting’ and ‘non-tangible’ services, picking the wrong client will guarantee the creation of emotional ‘flak’ and stress on your relationship. It is one thing to ship an item, and hassle with collections or damages, but quite another to explain ‘why’ a smile shows up when ‘he’ or ‘she’ calls. Trust me. Short term cash-flow isn’t worth long-term relationship baggage. Fly above, and not through the ‘flak’!
NOTE TO SELF: Keep Skype turned ‘off’ or ‘away’ until you’re really ‘available’ or clients will think you are on call 24/7!
The same goes for children and family. Drama in the home shuts off home-based business productivity – just like flipping the main switch on your electrical power box. I believe in keeping an ‘open’ door practice for my family, but there have also been numerous times when the door gets closed for a reason. Be kind, and be clear. Sometimes the skirmish will fall second to ‘insuring’ the invoice gets paid.
The Benefits Package
We’re self-insured. That means if we break it, we pay for it. Risky? Yes, and no. We take responsibility for our health. We practice balancing our sleep, eating, exercise, stress management (and such) by snowboarding, cycling, windsurfing and walking/running. No one we know is ‘looking out’ for us except ‘us’. This means that self-awareness is a critical skill. Self-awareness looks like this; recognizing that watching six consecutive seasons of ‘LOST’ on Netflix this winter while nibbling on dark chocolate and almonds has to be paid for by adding an hour of ‘play’ for each episode just to burn off those calories. Otherwise, we pay in another way - with our health.
Sleeping in until we’re rested each day is another benefit – which is offset by working on web servers for a client until 3 AM. No one else really knows what we pay for our benefits.
Artistic ‘creative-time’, like writing…
Just a moment, I’ll be right back…
…to an invisible audience is a task which requires faith. So far, I’ve been writing and programming for 5 months on the ‘Enterprising Cycle’ and it’s less than 1/3 finished. To stay focused, and not fearful, I consider other authors, and how their ‘faith’ rewarded me long after their efforts we’re in print. Then Angelina and I pray, in agreement, and somehow, every month we make it through the challenges.
Same with your business, you labor and stress like we do, and we respect your passion and faith. I want you to consider that the life you want starts in your mind, and each stressful ‘business’ discussion has to be balanced with a stress-free meal or reward.
So, your homework assignment is to do for your partner the very thing they need to remember why you are ‘in business’ together. What are your benefits? Take a few minutes and tell them how you love them, how you appreciate your journey together, and that ‘we’ll be just fine’ because someone IS IN FACT looking out for you.
Seven Day Weekends
he temptations of perpetual seven day weekends are big. We have several friends that are ‘serial entrepreneurs’ – each goes into their ‘cave’ from time to time to lick wounds and to get a fresh perspective of ‘why’ they are in business.
Who gets you out of bed in the morning? ‘Passion’ and ‘Purpose’ wake us up. If ‘Guilt’ and ‘Stress’ wake you it’s time to talk with your ‘BOSS’. Don’t take it anymore. Address the root problem before you pay for it another way – like through your health.
Self-employment usually means no less than 100 hour workweeks – until you understand that your clients won’t have you ‘at all’ if you keep working like that for long. Practice getting over the guilt of taking time off, knowing that when you are ‘at home’ working, you’re also ‘focused’ far more than if you were still in the cubicle slaving for someone else.
Ok, three hours are gone already. I’m going to make a great lunch.
As Daniel cooks… priorities?
This is Angelina. I start this articled at lunch and then got back to it while Daniel was cooking dinner, and we are now finishing this article at 10pm. I wrote content around misbalanced priorities that can happen when working from home but Daniel feels it should go into a different section of the website under ‘performance’. Ok, fine, whatever.
It’s late and he’s cranky over his expectations of what should have been accomplished today around solving other people’s problems. I can either personalize his frustration or just look at him with compassion and form a bubble over my head with what I could say but don’t.
As a couple that works around either other a lot it’s important to strengthen one’s spine as an individual and keep things in perspective [he’s now walking to the hot tube to cool off, ha!]. It’s also to remember that the later the day goes on the more tired we become so choosing a stopping point by dinnertime is important instead of pressing through to bedtime on what can be worked on the next day.
A positive support system outside the home office during tense moments like these is helpful, hello FaceBook (not a good idea, really) or me spending time with our cat Forest, that Daniel feels is an expensive distraction as I break 3-5 times a day to invest in time caring for the cat. Or is it the cat’s caring for me? Hmmm.
The hours in a day can sometimes become a blur. They do for me when I’m editing filmed footage. I love being a creative person but I’m also aware of the risk of a project becoming all encompassing, unbalancing my day when it would be a good idea for me to take a break and go for a walk or have coffee time with my love, Daniel, not the cat.
Being self-employed, your boss [you] may never let you quit on time like everyone else, who is punching their time clock to go home. When launching a new endeavor the work hours are extremely long as we build momentum, the goal is to level off as soon as possible to avoid burn out.
In spite of our bumps along the way, our hope and passion is to help other couples learn from our mistakes, let them know they are not alone and be encouraged that there can be a wonderfully, semi-balanced and somewhat successful life as an Enterprising Couple. Well, it’s time for my glass of wine as I get ready for bed, while the cat is snoring in the living room and Daniel ponders on his final thoughts for the day!
We look forward to seeing you at one of our workshops! Keeping it real!