Starting to work from home

Why VA Katie has decided to work from home

Katie Macdonald is a VA who’s shortly going to be starting to work from home. I asked her what had prompted that decision:

What’s your family situation, Katie?
I’m married to Darran, and we have been self building our own home since May 2009.  And when I say self-build, I mean self build!  We have done everything ourselves with very few contractors (only used for groundworks, tiles on the roof and plastering).

Why have you decided to run your own business and work from home?
I decided that I wanted to start my own business in 2009.  I’d been an executive PA for over ten years, loved my job, having always worked for very encouraging and inspiring people, who offered many opportunities for me to develop, outside the traditional PA box.
It was as my experience of PA-ing grew, and also my interest in small businesses and my admiration of those that started out on their own, that I came across the concept of virtual assistance.  I was really excited by this, the thought of being able to work without a rigid job description, and able to tailor the support I did, and the response I gave to small businesses.
To work from home was an added bonus, that came with wanting to work for myself.  The appeal was the freedom to manage my own time, if I wanted to bake a loaf of bread at 10.00am then I could, and if I wanted to go to the hairdressers on a weekday rather than trying to cram everything in at the weekend, then that would be what I could do!

What are you looking forward to when you start to work from home?  What/who do you think will help most?
The main one is probably managing my own time.  Not having to commute would be another, although my commutes have never been long or particularly arduous, it will be nice not to have to defrost the car so early anymore, or wonder if it snows overnight, whether I’ll be able to get to work! No office politics either!
There will be no one else at home with me during the day as Darran is out on sites all day.  
For a long time, I wasn’t phased by this, I’m quite happy with my own company and can usually busy myself with things, but as the end of ’employment’ draws nearer and I thought about going from a busy open plan office to just me, I realised that it is probably going to be important to have structure to my days so plan to do certain tasks etc. at certain times, at least at the beginning until I get into the swing of things.  
I think this will really help. I’ve also put things in my diary for my first few weeks I work from home, client meetings, and I’ve booked on a Jelly too.

Katie runs Virtually Does It, virtual assistance for your administration, creative, online and business support. We’ll be hearing more from her soon about her apprehensions and aspirations as she starts to work from home. New business and new house – good luck, Katie, and thanks for sharing your thoughts 🙂