Make Your Own Home Office

This is not about how to design a home office, but to make sure that it’s so important for work at home moms to have their personal home office.

If you are a working at home mom, I believe you understand how precious is your working time, as you have to make your own time in the middle of family routine, take care of your husband, home & kids (the latest will take your very best, I believe)

Working at home meaning more flexible time schedules, also flexible dress code (you even can work wearing your kimono and slippers), and maybe you are used to access your business phone from your kitchen.

But it’s not recommended for you wearing kimono and slippers while you are working, please moms, be professionals. You are working; this is a business not an evening nap. The clothes you wear will influence your mood & attitude, and you can not risk your business in a wrong attitude. Although you are not wearing a formal cloth, at least you can try to wear a more proper one when you are on your working zone.

Okay, enough with the dress code, we are talking about home office here.

Do you often disturb by your kids when you are working, I mean they grab your files and throw it away, or they use your pen to draw on the wall so when you need it you have to ask their favor to give it back to you?

Imagine you have your own home office, then tell your kids, this is mommy’s office, mommy is not playing around here, mommy work for the good of the family, and can give better education, more toys if mommy work. Not only that, tell your kids that they should not playing on mommy’s office nor disturb mommy when mommy is in her office, it’s like they are not allowed to disturb somebody else on church.

You might not need to have a closed room for your personal office (especially if your house not big enough for you to have a closed room only for you), but you could try to have a working zone, a corner that you could work without disturbance, it’s like your personal zone.

A working zone is also important for you, hopefully it develops your mindset, you are a working at home mom, you have your own business, and you should work there, be professional. Make your own time to work, a time when the kids doing their own activity, time when the family activity is minimum.

A business is not a business yet until you do it. Keep remember this if you want to succeed in your business.

Make Different Account

Do you know exactly how much you spend for your internet provider this month? Or pay for your domain hosting? And how much you pay for your grocery? Have you paid your rent for the next 6 months? How about your car insurance, is it paid for this 3 months?

How much money do you exactly have in your account right now? Is it enough if you need some emergency funds in the next 3 days? And wait, do you still remember how much you paid for last week lunch with your client?

If you feel you can not answer to those question or questions like that, I think you need to manage your cash book once again. Can not answer such question meaning you might have a mess money management. Maybe you spend too much, maybe you mixed your personal expenses with your business account, which is not good.

Imagine if you mixed your personal account with your business account. You might be forget how much exactly each account has, and then when you feel you still have some extra money, you just don’t realize it is your business money and you should pay some business cost next week using that money….. You will get trouble next week I believe.

Actually it is so simple to manage your accounts if you have your own business. The very first step is having different account for each usage. Open different bank account for your business and your personal money, thus will be best if you have one more account which is your savings (don’t touch this money unless there is a certain emergency).

Have your own policy for each account, like:

1. For your business account, you will never use the money for your personal use, it only use for the business inflow and outflow. You only pay your business cost, and every business income goes straight to this account. And if you need some money for business emergency, of course you could borrow from another account of yours, just don’t forget to pay it back ;)
2. For your personal account, you will live only from this money; you cannot borrow money from another account of yours to buy grocery or other personal needs. You must discipline yourself to live with the amount (so calculate how much you need and live with it)
3. Make an extra account for your savings, the money can come from your business profit (you could take certain percentage from your profit for your savings, beside some profit you might put back to develop your business) and also you might save the rest of your personal money if you could save some.

Having those personal account might be sounds some paperwork, but believe me, it worth. You only have to put the certain money on the right account. It’s like you have a different shoes for different occasion, it’s that simple.

The extra job you should do is periodically prints your book and monitors the amount and the book keeping, it’s that simple, once you get use to it, it will like riding a bicycle.

Having a business meaning you have a responsibility for reaching your goal, this only a small tip that might help you.