If there’s one thing most moms and dads know, it’s that sometimes you have to multitask. This is even more true when you work at home. Your work isn’t going to do itself. The house isn’t going to take care of itself. Neither are any of the kids too young to care for themselves, and you can’t always assume older ones will behave.

It’s hard to fit everything you need to do in a 24 hour day and still get some sleep, never mind taking a break. Often enough you’re going to do some serious multitasking.

What Goes Together?

Your first consideration when multitasking is knowing what goes together. Putting the wrong tasks together slows them all down to where you would have been better off doing them separately.

If something should require your full attention, don’t start multitasking. That includes listening to your kids, spouse, friends and other family members.

Reading can be great for multitasking. You can read while waiting to pick your kids up from school if they’re still young enough to need that. You can read and even type while breastfeeding a baby… although you should beware of flailing limbs hitting random keys on your keyboard. This gets more deliberate as babies get older.

Brainstorming is also great for multitasking. Keep a pad of paper or something else you can jot notes on available as you do chores around the house. Think about whatever it is you’re brainstorming about as you work on the chores, pausing to note ideas.

You can occasionally combine playing with your kids with working, especially if they’re at an age where they love to imitate you. Talk about what you’re doing even if this means talking to a pre-verbal toddler who only babbles back. They’ll love hearing your voice and feeling involved in what you’re doing.

Involving your kids in general in your work can be a good thing if done right. They’re learning a bit of the reality of your life. They’re learning about earning money. They might even be learning some skills as they get old enough to really help you.

What Doesn’t Go Together?

I’ve already mentioned that it’s not a good idea to combine listening to people with most other kinds of work. People know when you aren’t really paying attention to them. It’s easy enough to pause in your typing or whatever you’re doing to let your kids tell you something they think is important, and they’ll appreciate that you gave them your full attention… even if they don’t show it.

It’s not good to combine activities that really need your full attention. You’re more likely to slow the progress on both. This often isn’t so much multitasking as it is switching between activities anyhow.

If you have a few things you’re trying to get done, you can switch between when you need a break from one to go to the other. You can write an article, then work on research for a new website, then write another article, for example. But too often if you write a few sentences, then do a touch of research on something unrelated you’re just going to mess up your train of thought for both.

Been getting a lot of product launch emails of late, promising big commissions easily. You know, the usual. I’m just a bit cranky today and they’re annoying me a bit more than usual.

You see, despite the claims that it’s going to be easy to earn with these programs, it won’t be.

The thing these people have, and are often trying to add to with their product launches is a big list. That’s people they can sell to from brand new sites.

Most of these products won’t tell you anything that dozens of other products can tell you already. If you’ve been doing affiliate marketing for much time at all, you probably already have ebooks with the same information. You aren’t likely to find anything new. Just rehashed information that might have been new five or so years ago.

Don’t get me started on the “But wait!” popups. Two, three, four… let me leave the site! No means no. I kind of get doing that once, but over and over is obnoxious. Must work, I see it so often, but still… obnoxious.

Want My Magic Success Button?

I have a magic success button. It doesn’t work fast, and the magic is really picky. You have to hit it just right.

It’s called hard work. It’s called research. It’s called keep trying. It’s also called patience.

It’s also called unsubscribe from the lists that do nothing but promote the latest products to you with no regard for quality. Either that or sort them into a file for reference if you need to write your own sales letters. You can get some great ideas from other people’s sales letters.

Don’t waste your time buying too many new products. Buy information when you need it, and act on it. I mean that. Act on it!

If you don’t take action, that information never does you any good at all. You’ve wasted money and the time you spent reading the ebook, if you even got so far as to read it.

Marketing is a major part of any business. If you don’t market, you don’t make sales. But calling it marketing may keep you in the wrong frame of mind.

The word “marketing” puts you in the frame of mind of bringing customers to your business. More of a sales-y feeling. That’s not a bad thing, but a little switch might help you to think of what you’re doing in a way that’s more helpful to your customers and your business.

You aren’t marketing. You’re finding solutions.

You’re finding solutions your customers need. This encourages you to think of what your customers need, rather than just what you want to offer them. You need to think more from their perspective. Don’t market them. Find a solution they want and offer it to them.

There are many ways to think of the problems potential customers are facing. It can be a problem of image. It can be a problem around the house. It can be a problem with their career.

Whatever the problem is, don’t think strictly of what will make the sale for you. Think of what will make the purchase right for the customer.

You’re also finding solutions for your business. What brings in the most money? What works? What doesn’t? What has the best return for your efforts?

When you’re solving problem, you test. That’s something you should always be doing in your marketing, testing. Test sales copy. Test landing pages. Test prices. Test traffic sources. Keep testing.

There are a few things that will tell you if you’ve solved a particular marketing problem, but money is a favorite way for most to know. We’re pretty much in business for the money, with loving what we do as a wonderful benefit that’s almost as important. But few of us can run any sort of business purely for the love of it. A decent income is needed to keep the passion alive.

Not every solution you create will work out. Sometimes you’ll lose money.

But you’ll always learn something, even if it’s “Wow. That really, really didn’t work like I thought it would!”

Most failures have something more to teach, however. There may have been some money earned, and if you can separate that part out, you can find out what part of the failure worked. That’s valuable information you may be able to use on its own or combine with a new solution. Or maybe it brought in traffic but poor to no sales. It’s up to you to figure out if it was purely low quality traffic or another problem.

Don’t fool yourself and think that any business can get away without marketing. Instead, treat your marketing as a chance to find solutions to the problems you and your potential customers face.

There’s nothing like having a home business earning just enough for you to get by… except one that’s doing better than that. Reaching that level feels great, but most of us quickly want more. We want to do more than just make it. How do you get there?

Most home businesses reach a plateau where you just can’t seem to do any better. Everything you try is just more treading water. You don’t do any worse, you can do it just about forever, but you aren’t reaching the greater goals you’ve set for yourself.

There is something you can do about that. It’s not always comfortable. Simple little thing called making a change.

Making a change isn’t always comfortable. It means taking a chance that things won’t work out. Sometimes changes make things worse. But if you think it out and have a plan, and can keep doing the basics that hold your business in place, that change can help your business to grow.

What to Change?

What you change in your business depends on what you do. If you’re blogging, try something new such as making videos or guest blogging. Do something that gets your name out there more.

Your change must be a positive thing. Don’t make it something you dread doing, although it can be uncomfortable at first. I’m doing some very basic videos for one of my sites. It’s not a comfortable process for me yet, as I always feel that I’m talking too fast no matter how I try to slow down. But video is another potential source of traffic. It’s getting to be a bit more fun.

The changes you make should be a part of your overall business strategy. Don’t change just to make a change; know why you’re doing it and what you want to get from it. Doing things randomly rarely benefits a business.

Improve and Add to Your Skills

Whatever you do with your business, you must keep improving your skills. Read everything you have time for in your industry. Try new things. Buy carefully chosen tools that will make your work easier.

You don’t want to keep your skills at the same level all the time. In too many industries you’ll be overtaken by those who are keeping their skills up to date and adding new skills. Your old skills will keep you going for a time, but eventually you’re better off with keeping them updated.

Just look at the changes the availability of social media has made to all kinds of online businesses, and even to brick and mortar businesses. All kinds of businesses are using sites such as Twitter and Facebook to keep in contact with current customers, find new ones and offer deals. They’re also great mediums for finding out when someone has a problem with your business or product. Just as more and more people are now disappointed when a business doesn’t have a website, they’re becoming disappointed when they can’t find them on social media.

Making the right kind of change isn’t just good for your business, it’s vital. Don’t just sit at a comfortable plateau and wonder why your business isn’t growing. Make a change and push it to grow.

One of the biggest disadvantages to working at home has to be coping with the kids. It’s one of the biggest advantages too, but that’s beside the point just now. I’m talking about the times that you just don’t want the kids underfoot.

Especially if toddlers are involved. Home offices and computers in particular need to be protected from toddlers! They may not be able to accidentally download a virus yet, but the damage they can do just by randomly pounding keys is nothing short of amazing.

A childproofed office makes it easier to be productive. You don’t have to worry as much if the kids come in while you’re working, and you may be able to keep them out entirely. The challenge is making it childproof in the first place.

Close the Door

If your home office has a door, closing it is one of the simplest steps you can take to childproofing your work area. Younger kids can’t open it and older kids can be taught not to go into your home office without permission or need.

If you don’t have a door, you’ll need to do a lot more childproofing. Realistically, even with a door you’ll probably want to take more childproofing steps for those times one of the kids gets in there.

Establish Rules About Your Working Hours

If you’re working when the kids are awake, you’re going to need some rules about when they can interrupt you. Younger kids will need simpler rules, and if you’re the only adult in the house when you’re working you need to expect some interruptions.

As kids get older they get better at entertaining themselves and can deal with stricter rules. Tell them they can only interrupt you for emergencies.

Protect Your Computer

The computer is a major asset to most home businesses. It’s not just the value of the machine. It’s all the information on it. You really don’t want the kids messing with it.

If you have toddlers around, make sure they can’t play with the buttons on the front of the computer itself. I’ve gone so far as to cover them with cardboard when I’ve had a computer in reach of a child. The power button in particular often has pretty lights on or near it that draw a toddler’s attention and makes the button irresistible.

You’ll also need to protect your mouse and keyboard. It’s amazing what a toddler can do by pounding on a keyboard, and sometimes it’s hard to undo what they’ve done.

You can also protect your computer from toddlers by setting a password so that you have to login when you’ve been away for a period of time. Choose the time wisely so it doesn’t drive you nuts when you’re using the computer.

If your kids are allowed to use your business computer, set up rules that will protect your computer. Require approval on downloads. Be in the room whenever possible when your kids are using the computer. Talk to them at age appropriate levels about the hazards of the internet.

Not just for kids, but to protect your computer from the hazards of being a computer you will need antivirus and antispyware software installed on it.

Keep Cords and Outlets Safe

Kids find cords fascinating. Outlets are pretty neat too. You don’t want them messing around with either.

Most times they won’t get hurt. I’ve had kids unplug things on me, and it’s just a distraction, not a danger. But you don’t want your kids messing with cords, wrapping them around their necks, chewing on them as they teethe, you get the idea.

Find a cord organizer that works for you. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just something to keep the bulk of the cords out of the reach of children.

As for outlets, simple outlet covers do a pretty good job. You can buy covers that protect outlets while still allowing items to remain plugged in.

Know Your Noise Limits

Sometimes the amount of noise your kids make while you’re working doesn’t matter. Other times it’s a big deal.

Buy a noise cancelling headset for your phone for those times that you can’t have background noise on a call. They’re affordable and a big help when you don’t want background noises to make it on the call. They may not get everything if the kids are being particularly loud, but they’re a big help.

Noise can also be a distraction that makes it harder to be productive. Talk to your family about how much noise you’re comfortable with when you’re working in your office.