The Five Skills Needed To Successfully Work From Home
In this day and age, working from home is more viable than any other previous generation. Many women have given up the corporate world for work at home jobs or businesses that allow us to be with our kiddos and raise them while bringing in a great paycheck. But the decision to even begin can be pretty scary.
I started working from home part-time in 2000. I left my corporate graphic design and development job to work from home full-time in 2009 and haven’t looked back since. Working from home has allowed me to be with both of our boys since the day they were born. BUT it was not easy.
If you’re thinking of working from home, here are five skills needed to successfully work from home.
1. Self-motivated. You don’t have a boss, YOU are the boss! You have to motivate yourself each day to work instead of catching up on episodes of Scandal, to work when your kids are in bed, and to work on the days you don’t feel motivated. You won’t get paid if you don’t work.
2. Good time management skills. When you are a parent working from home, often times your schedule depends on your kids. For me that means I primarily work in the evenings when they go to bed, but now that we have one starting kindergarten, that will change. I’ll be going to be early and getting up before they wake up to get my work done then. I make a task list the night before so that each day I’m able to sit down to work and get things done off that list without getting distracted. That allows me to get my work done faster and in the short time frame I have for work.
3. Good people skills. Some people might disagree with this one, but I personally think it’s important! If you are working with others. This means you need to use manners and be able to communicate well. I’ve had hundreds of people contact me for job information and 75% will not even respond back to me with a “thank you.” That just blows my mind. Good people skills also involves how you speak to people, how you relate to them, and how you interact with them – these can all play a huge role! Someone who is kind and helpful, I want to listen to what they have to say! Someone who is short and rude, I am not interested in communicating with them and usually try to get away from them as soon as possible. So always trying and have manners and be kind! You never know, they may refer their friends to you!
4. Be creative. This is not required to be successful working from home, but I really think it helps a lot. Sometimes you have to come up with new ideas on how to advertise yourself, how to find new customers, how to grow your contact list and being creative can help make it easier! If you are not creative, you can always ask others who successfully work from home for tips as many people are happy to share what they have found works for them OR check out my blog – www.secretsofamomboss.com where myself and other work from home moms are sharing what we know.
5. Be the boss. This is one of the most important skills you need, you need to be able to be a BOSS! You need to keep yourself on track, but you also need to be able to evaluate your own work. Are you working the required hours you need to be each week? Are you doing busy work, or productive work? Are you being honest with yourself about how hard you work? These are things you have to hold yourself accountable for every day. I have so many people who tell me they weren’t successful working from home, but usually that means they didn’t show up to work! An at home business is the same as an office job, if you don’t work, you won’t get paid! If you work for 15 minutes three days a week, that is what you should expect to get paid for! If you spend your office hours organizing product instead of connecting with people, then you can’t complain about a small check because you haven’t really helped anyone. You have to be your own boss and be willing to look at you work and see how you can improve to help you with your goals.
If you know you would be perfect for working at home, make sure to check out our Work From Home Directory for a job that will be perfect for you! This directory will be coming soon to my website — www.secretsofamomboss.com.
