Before starting your business, one question that you need to have an answer for is: Where will you work?
Your home office may be an unused room in your house, or a small corner of your dining room, or any space that can be used exclusively for your business. Pictured above is my office in a corner of our living room. I’m planning to make our garage my domain, but that will come later, when I have the budget for remodeling. For now, I have to make do with the space that I have. And this is where everything happens. Right next to my kids’ study area. I can put in some work while they do their seatwork. And it’s very handy when I need to show them pictures. (Like this morning, while Bea was working on combining two words to form a new word, the example given in the book was silkworm, and she has no idea what it looks like. So with just a few clicks, she was able to appreciate what’s written in her book.)
Having a work area that you can call your own will help you establish your business as a serious venture. It also puts boundaries. Like my family respects that space as my office, and they do not just get anything from it without asking for permission first.
Determine what basic equipment you need and invest on it. You can either purchase your equipment new, or if you’re on a tight budget, you can buy used equipment and upgrade later when you can better afford it.
Make sure that you have a business phone line separate from what your family uses, especially if you get or make a lot of social calls on that line. You will lose business if your customers cannot reach you at the time that they need you. With me, mobile phones work best. It allows my clients to reach me anytime, anywhere.
Working from home may take some self-discipline, especially in the beginning. You may find it hard to remain undistracted by household chores, or the children’s chatter, so setting up your own official office or work space will help you establish a mindset of “going to work”.
Marge, also known as The Happy WAHM, is a virtual assistant who turned her passion for entrepreneurship into a worthy endeavor of offering complete business solutions to CEOs and business owners around the world. She turned her back on a thriving corporate career to become a hands-on mom and created a lifestyle that allowed her to build a homebased career, homeschool her children, and still have time to pursue her passion for arts and crafting.
She only posts her content on her website, TheHappyWAHM.com. If you see this content on someone else’s site then it is NOT by any means authorized.
