successful home working
Judy
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Home page: http://www.workfromhomewisdom.com
Posts by Judy
‘Office working has never suited me’
61 day ago
Sheree Lowe, also known as SundownerVA, is the latest contributor to the Home Office Gallery with her fascinating itemisation of the bits and pieces she carries round as a mobile worker. This is what she told me in the email that accompanied her photo:
‘Office working has never suited me. The main reason for this is that I feel completely stifled by routine. One of the reasons I stopped working for someone else was that when I walked into the office, I knew what I would be doing that day … and I knew what I would be doing the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and could see my dreary working life mapped out, all the way to the horizon.
‘Working for myself, no two days are the same, and the day I am expecting when I wake up in the morning is not usually the day I’m reflecting back on that evening! I love how great opportunities constantly come up if you’re open to them, and if you’re not in the right mood for something on one particular day, no worries, you can adjust your day accordingly. And THAT is why I don’t have an office! I don’t have a separate space for a home office at home, and I will never rent any office space if I can avoid it.’
I love this firstly because it confirms my own belief that you don’t need a dedicated space for a home office, and it’s always nice to feel right, and secondly because it so neatly sums up the reasons so many of us choose this path and continue on it, even when it gets hard – very hard – and a job and salary seem such a tempting alternative.
Sheree asked me why I set up Work from Home Wisdom. The short answer is that I work for myself because working for someone else feels limiting and lacking in fulfilment. And I’m doing this work relating to home working because I previously ran a cleaning business that was financially very successful but mind-numbingly dull.
I knew that my next venture had to be something that drew much more on my experience and skills and allowed me to express myself more, and after a very long time this is what it turned out to be! I’m still working on how to make it as financially viable as the cleaning business, and I’ll be telling you more about my plans soon.
Why have you chosen to do what you do? Was it carefully planned or did you fall into it by accident?
Save money on home business insurance this year
54 days ago
by Judy
in Home business
Today’s guest post comes from comparethemarket.com:
Many people have committed to cutting their budget this year in order to pay off debt and to accumulate savings. One way to accomplish this goal is to save money on home insurance. Home businesses have similar goals and strive to reduce the cost of their public liability insurance. Although these two types of insurance products apply to different types of customers, saving money on these insurance policies follow the same basic strategy.
Home insurance provides coverage for fire, theft and damage due to various weather conditions. It also covers damages that result when an individual sustains an injury while on another’s premises. Similarly, public liability insurance provides coverage to home businesses if a client has an accident while visiting your home office for a meeting. It will also cover you for damage you cause while visiting a client’s premises.
One way to save money on home insurance or public liability insurance is for the individual or home business to assess the real amount of insurance needed. Many individuals pay for too much insurance that is drastically over the amount that they should realistically be paying for. On the other hand, if a serious injury occurs on an individual’s property or on the premises of a business, having adequate coverage can prevent an injured victim from seeking damages from the homeowner or business owner directly.
Another way to save money on property insurance or public liability insurance is to secure multiple insurance policies from the same insurance company. A homeowner can obtain automobile insurance in addition to her property insurance. A home business owner can obtain malpractice or health insurance in combination with public liability insurance. Most insurance companies offer a sizable discount for multiple policies.
One of the best ways to save money on any type of insurance is to use a price comparison site. These sites allow homeowners and home business owners to key in the amount of coverage that they need and results will populate with a variety of coverage and prices. This side by side comparison helps individuals find the best bargain.
Join the mission to save money on insurance this year.
New Year’s business resolutions – how to stay on track to achieving them
211 week ago
by Judy
in Home business
Today’s guest post is a welcome reminder from Claire Habel of Inspiring Futures in the dull days of January:
Have you started 2012 with vigour or are you still trying to pick up the pace? A few weeks in, now is a good time to do a bit of a sense-check on how those ideas and plans are panning out.
No doubt as January approached you spent a bit of time thinking about your vision, goals and resolutions for your business. The key as we all know is then being able to turn that thinking into results through planning and action, which is where things can start to get tricky.
Unexpected e-mails drop in, tasks over-run and before you know it, you hear yourself saying how busy you are. So, although you may still be steering your ship, it may not be heading in quite the right direction at the speed you had imagined.
So, here are some helpful tips to help you stay focused and on-track:
- Nobody wants to become a ‘busy fool’ but it’s amazing how easily it happens. The key to avoiding it is to avoid fooling yourself about what you’re busying yourself with. Plans and action are vital to achieving results but only if formed and focused properly…
- Before you dive into writing long lists of things to do, start with the end in mind i.e. your goal/objective and ‘plan back’ from there. Then move onto writing your to-do lists, ensuring you focus on the most important and urgent things first.
- Action takes you towards results but is not an end in itself. Ask yourself whether you are more focused on actions or outcomes.
- To keep focused, ask yourself each day: “Am I concentrating on the most important and urgent things first?” Take a moment each week to consider: “What one thing could I do this week that would have most impact on moving me closer to my goal”.
- If you need to revive and refocus, get back in touch with your ‘personal business drivers’ by reminding yourself what all of this is for. Keep that front of mind and ensure all plans start from that point. You’ll find yourself far more motivated if you do!
Profile: Claire Habel is the founder of Inspiring Futures through which she helps her clients develop personal business plans and winning marketing strategies for their businesses.
Entrepreneur or home business owner?
21 week ago
by Judy
in Home business
Sometimes an idea will knock around inside my head for a while until I realise it would make a good subject for a blog post. Today it’s been drawn out by a conversation with my marketing consultant, Claire Habel. We were talking about being an entrepreneur and my immediate reaction was that I’m not!
My definition of an entrepreneur is someone who has doing deals and making money in their blood, who was the kind of kid who was selling sweets to the other kids in primary school. I was perfectly happy with my pocket money. Making any more never occurred to me and anyway it would have meant putting down the books I permanently had my nose in.
My profile in the Wealth Dynamics system, an ‘entrepreneur profiling test’, is Mechanic, someone who excels in putting systems and processes into place and making sure they work efficiently. After initially sulking for turning out to be the most boring out of the eight profiles (knowing that Mark Zuckerberg is a Mechanic makes it no more attractive), the penny dropped that this was why I ran a very profitable cleaning business for 12 years and sold it as a going concern.
I introduced systems for everything, from recruiting staff to checking the loo cleaner and changing dirty dusters, and it allowed me to make exceptional profits. But I think that makes me a good business owner, not an entrepreneur. The definition in my Penguin English Dictionary is ‘somebody who organises, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise’.
Very definitely yes to the first two, but I’m far too cautious for the third. What do you think? Are you an entrepreneur? Do you even like the word or do you think programmes like Dragons Den have given it a bad name?
Home workers celebrate Jellyweek
21
Further to my post about the necessity for home workers to keep connected in order to stay positive, I should mention that this week is Worldwide Jellyweek, in which this unique business event is being celebrated all over the globe.
Fortuitously, yesterday just happened to be the day on which Frome Jelly falls, and here is an artist’s impression of a couple of the attendees in a (rare?) moment of concentration between laughter and cake eating. The artist is Sarah Godsill, who is usually to be found capturing much grander events like weddings.
Jelly brings together random groups of people from many industries and professions. As well as Sarah, yesterday’s Frome Jelly at The Old Church School consisted of a trainer and coach, two IT specialists, a legal consultant, a PR expert, and an international development and human rights professional. Wow! I highly recommend Jelly as a unique way of:
- getting out of the house
- meeting new people you’d otherwise never run into
- picking up bits of advice, particularly on those aggravating IT glitches that can hold you up
- helping out other people and realising that they respect and value the experience and knowledge you possess, which you probably normally dismiss as obvious and commonplace
- clearing up some boring old jobs that have been pushed down the to do list for weeks
- catching up on local gossip
- having a good laugh
- gaining a whole new perspective on your life and work
- eating cake (often homemade, yum)
All this with no requirement to stand up and talk about your business or listen to other people boring on about theirs. I’m pleased to see there’s lots of buzz on Twitter about new groups starting up in places all over the UK. To find out more and for help in setting up your own Jelly, check out my Jelly guide.
I know lots of readers are already committed Jelly-goers. Have I missed out any other Jelly benefits?
Why is an inferiority complex so often a home worker’s default setting?
242 weeks ago
by Judy
in Beating isolation
I’ve spoken to many home workers and freelancers over the last few years and one of the common themes that comes up time and time again is the speed at which the human brain spirals down into self-doubt and lack of confidence when left too long to its own devices. And solitary time is usually a big chunk of a home worker’s week, even if they are careful to plan for meetings and coworking.
‘Too long’ can mean a few hours of struggling with a piece of work, an hour of guilty procrastination, or a minute or two spent reading about other people’s achievements. From the dining table room table or spare bedroom it can quickly start to appear that other people ‘out there’ are cleverer, better connected, lavishly funded and possessed of a dauntingly impressive client list.
Our own horizons and ambitions shrink proportionately – how can we, with our family commitments and our small local clients, possibly compete? By squeezing that time alone to the absolute minimum, I’d say from my own experience.
This time last year I was co-organising The BIG Jelly with Jan Minihane and Fay Easton. It took far more time and energy than any of us anticipated and we experienced setbacks throughout the six months of planning, in fact right up to the day itself. There were many occasions when I wanted to cancel, but regular contact with Jan and Fay kept my spirits up and fortunately there was never a time when all three of us were down at the same time! The event was a huge success and I think all of us were thrilled and amazed by what we’d managed to achieve.
So I believe the best way to achieve your potential when you work from home is to stay connected, whether it’s through coworking, Jelly, networking or forming partnerships with other small businesses. Yes, it means drawing on skills we don’t have to use if we pursue the solitary life, but it also means the opportunity to learn both from other people and what we’re really capable of.
PS As usual this post is written because I need to hear it 
