One of the great things about having a work at home job or a home business is that you might have a lot of flexibility in where you work. It’s not necessarily all at home, depending on the kind of work you do. Sure, if you need a wired phone and internet connection you’ll be limited in where you work, but in many other cases, where you work is up to you. Here are some of the many places you can work when you work at home.

1. Home Office

A properly set up home office is the best option when you can get it, even if you don’t want to be stuck in it all the time. It’s a place for all your work stuff. If you can close the door for privacy while you work, so much the better.

Your home office should have great internet connectivity, power, a setup you like, a good office chair and desk, and whatever else you need. You don’t have to worry about the space being taken over by someone else. If other people are too noisy, you can tell them you need quiet. They’re family or friends, after all. You can ask them to respect your work hours.

You may be able to take the home office deduction on your taxes if you maintain and use your home office. Check with your tax professional to see if your space qualifies.

Disadvantages

Isolation. If you want to be around other people sometimes, your home office can be very isolating.

If you have kids, it can also be a very frustrating place for them to have you work. They’ll get bored and want your attention, especially if they’re young.

2. Bedroom

Your bedroom is one of the other places to work at home when you need to close a door. It’s not ideal for most people, but it’s a possible solution. Hopefully you have the space to set up a desk and chair, rather than having to sit on the bed to work.

Disadvantages

It’s your bedroom. Some people find it very difficult to use their bedroom as an office. It makes it too easy to think about work when you should be sleeping.

3. Living Room/Elsewhere In The Home

Lots of people who work at home will work in shared spaces around the house, such as the living room. Sometimes you want to be a part of things; other times it’s because you have no better space available. Your productivity may take a hit, but at least you can work.

Disadvantages

It’s very difficult to get away from the noise of everyday life in the home if you’re in the same space as everyone else. It’s distracting.

You also may not be able to have a permanent home office setup, especially if you use the kitchen table. This isn’t so bad if you’re working strictly on a laptop, tablet or phone, but it’s more problematic if you need to use a desktop computer for your work.

4. Backyard

You get a beautiful, sunny, but not too hot day, and it will be tempting to work in your backyard. Fresh air, sunshine, and the feeling that you really are living the work at home dream. It’s a nice break from being indoors all the time.

If you have kids, it’s a chance to work where they’re playing. Don’t let them distract you too much, but enjoy the ability to all be together even when you’re earning a living.

Disadvantages

Patio furniture may not be as comfortable as what you have indoors. Your access to power may be limited. How good is the wifi in your yard? Hopefully it’s good enough.

If you have kids, they’re probably going to be noisy out there with you, and want you to join in the fun. Being productive can be a little more difficult.

5. Coffee Shop

Here’s the traditional office away from home office of the home based worker. Coffee shops have long been popular with people who work at home but aren’t limited to working specifically at home.

There are advantages to working at a coffee shop, such as snacks, drinks, and free wifi. Many coffee shops try to be comfortable for remote workers.

Disadvantages

Those snacks probably aren’t all that healthy. You might spend more than you should. The menu looks so good.

Coffee shops can also be noisy, as others come and go, and the employees call out orders. They often have music, which may be too loud for your tastes.

Employees won’t appreciate it if you take up a table for too long, especially if the other tables are all full. Pay attention to the crowds and try not to hog the space if the shop is busy.

6. Fast Food Restaurants

Like coffee shops, many fast food restaurants offer free wifi. So long as you don’t take up a table too long when all the others are full, most don’t mind if you work while enjoying your order.

Go to a fast food restaurant that features a playground if you have kids. They can play; you can work. The air conditioning isn’t too bad at most, so those days when the weather is too hot, cold or damp for them to play outside, you can still give them playtime.

Disadvantages

Fast food restaurants are usually noisy, especially if they have playgrounds. You may also need to fight the urge to get yet another snack as you work, even though the food is rarely all that good for you.

7. Beach

The beach is another of those dream places to work. Out in the sun and sand, it’s almost like a vacation while you work. Pick the right day, and it’s beautiful and warm.

Disadvantages

There are no power outlets on the beach. Your internet connection depends on how good service is in the area, and probably depends on your cell phone provider.

Sand gets into everything. If you aren’t careful, that includes your laptop.

You can’t do all of the fun things you can do other times at the beach. You’ll get some sun, but you can’t work all that hard on a tan. You probably won’t want to leave your equipment alone to take a dip in the water either.

8. Park

The park is a good place to work when you want to get out of the house or if the kids need to get out and run. You’ll get fresh air and you can often find a bench or table to work at. If the park tends to be crowded, bring your own seating, and you’ll be fine.

Disadvantages

No power, and many don’t offer wifi. You have to provide your own internet connection.

Parks can be noisy, even if you go on your own. Kids play, dogs bark, and people walk by all the time. You can’t always find a quiet spot to work.

9. Coworking Space

A coworking space is a good way to get the advantages of a large office while working on your own terms. It should provide everything you need to have a productive day – wifi, phones, desk, printers, copiers and so forth. A good coworking space will have everything you need.

There will also be other people around, which can give you some camaraderie with the other people who use the space. You get people to talk to, so you’re less isolated.

Disadvantages

Cost. If you’re paying for it yourself, a coworking space can be on the pricey side. Some employers pay for coworking spaces for work at home employees if they want one, but it’s not a very common benefit.

10. Library

The library can be an excellent place to work. You may not even need to bring your own computer, although if you have any privacy concerns, you probably should. Most libraries offer free wifi. The air conditioning can be pretty good too. Unlike coffee shops, they rarely care how long you stay during business hours, aside from any time limits on library computers.

Libraries may also offer other services, such as copy machines or a fax machine. If you need these services , it’s nice to have them right there.

Disadvantages

Libraries are thought of as being quiet places to work, but that’s not always true. Kids sometimes get noisy in there, as do other patrons.

Library hours can be very limiting. The one in my area, for example, is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you want to work outside those hours, the library isn’t for you.

In general, you should think carefully about where you work outside your home office. It’s nice to get away sometimes, get a little time around other people, but pay attention to what it does to your productivity. It might help, but it might not. Try working other places if your work permits it, but if you’re less productive, it’s probably not the right choice for you. You might be surprised at what works for you.

The post 10 Places You Can Work When You Work At Home appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

It’s not that long until all the holiday craziness will be behind us. As you finish up your holiday shopping, it’s time to turn your attention to planning for the new year, and greater success for your online business..

You don’t have to make grand resolutions for the new year just because it’s a tradition. This is, however, a great time of year to consider where you’re headed and where you would like to be.

What Are Your Goals For Next Year?

Just where are you headed with your online business anyhow? Are you moving in the right direction?

No matter your answer to that question, set goals to keep things moving. Setting goals is a huge part of planning for the new year.

Some people say their goals are as simple as “I want to build a great business online that gets tons of traffic and earns me lots of money.” 

That’s fine. But not really helpful.

A goal must be actionable.

It’s easier to set actionable goals if you use the SMART Goals technique. This means the goals you set must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-related.

Once you have your overall goals set, you can create milestones that will help you work toward those goals. Think of these as smaller goals which will help you reach your bigger goals.

If you want to earn $10,000 a month, for example, you can break that down into milestones that will help you get there.

Milestones don’t have to be the same type of event as the overall goal. One milestone could be finding five high quality products to promote to your list. Another could be getting a certain number of subscribers.

You can also set a smaller version of your big goal as a milestone, such as reaching $1,000 a month. Just don’t limit yourself.

If you find it too difficult to reach your goals, you may have set them too high. Remember that SMART goals must be attainable. If that’s not working for you, rethink the goal.

Is It Time To Update Your Skills?

When you have an online business, odds are that you have some skills that could use updating or improvement. Things change fast online, and it’s important to keep up.

Consider social media marketing, for example. Most social media sites make significant changes throughout the year.

Twitter, for example, no longer wants users to tweet the same post out over and over again. They want you to use the retweet function or change the content of the tweet. This has changed how you should use scheduling tools with Twitter.

That’s only one example.

Consider paying for courses that will help you keep up to date with the things that matter to you most. Many will include free updates for at least a year, and possibly for life. When you’re trying to keep up with a changing industry, getting updates helps a ton.

And of course you should keep up with your industry to the best of your abilities as well. Exactly what that means depends on the niche of your online business.

Udemy can be a great resource to find courses you want to take on just about any subject. Many of the course creators keep them updated regularly.

You can learn about SEO, making YouTube videos, WordPress tricks, ebook publishing, app development, improve your writing skills and so much more. Now’s a great time to get started.

Is Your Website Up To Date?

It’s amazing how fast information on a website can go out of date. This is a great time of year to see what needs to be updated.

Start with your photo on your About page. Does it look good? Does it convey the impression you want to create?

What about the information you share on your About page? Has anything changed? Are you still happy with the information you present there? Does it have a call to action?

If you don’t have an About Me page on your site, make one. People like learning about the person behind the site.

Next, check your website for broken links. Broken links make your site look terrible.

This is easy if you use WordPress – the free Broken Link Checker plugin can handle it for you. Don’t run this plugin all the time – it’s very resource intensive, but it’s great for the occasional check. Deactivate and uninstall it once you’re done. Be aware that some hosts do not allow the use of this plugin due to how resource intensive it is.

If you have Google Analytics installed, you can also use it to find broken links on your site. Follow the steps offered on this site to see how to find and fix these errors on your site.

There are also a variety of online broken link checkers you can use. Most check a limited number of pages for free, and have a paid version that will allow you to check your whole site.

Finally, check for information that is out of date. What has changed in your industry in the past year? Keeping the information on your site up to date makes you look better to visitors.

Review Your Social Media Accounts

Social media plays a significant role in marketing for most online businesses. It’s affordable, and extremely effective if you do it right.

Start with your profile image for each social media account. Do they convey a consistent impression of your and your business?

In many cases, a photo of you is the best choice for a social media profile. It shows the person behind the business. And while you don’t necessarily have to update your photo every year, it should be reasonably current.

Next, take a look at who you’re following. Cull the ones that aren’t interesting, and find new people to follow who are relevant to your industry. 

Don’t worry about who follows you back – following people on social media should always be about who you find interesting.

Take a look at any analytics you have on each social media account. Tools such as Hootsuite and Tailwind make it easier to see how each social media account is performing. You should do this regularly throughout the year as well.

On Pinterest, take a look at your boards and see how they’re performing? Does it make sense to create any new boards in your niche? Are there any boards that you aren’t really pinning to at all?

Start Organizing For Tax Season

The end of the year means tax season will be upon you all too soon. It’s time to start getting ready.

Start by getting all of your expenses pulled together. Any money you’ve spent on your online business should be listed. Anything you have any doubts on should be put into a special place so you can ask your accountant or bookkeeper if it’s deductible.

Start pulling together your income reports as well. Having all of these things ready to go will make it easier to file your taxes when the time comes. If you’re getting a refund, the sooner you file, the better!

If you have employees or contractors you paid during the year, you need to get the appropriate tax forms ready for them as soon as possible in the new year. You know how much of a pain it is to wait for these forms – don’t make other people wait for one from you.

Get Your Email Under Control

Are you the organized sort who keeps their email organized all of the time, or do you let it slide and have thousands of emails sitting in your inbox? If you’re the second sort, it’s time to clean out your email!

Start by finding newsletters you don’t read, and unsubscribe from them. They’re just clutter.

Next, come up with a system for sorting your emails. I have lots of filters set up so that many of my emails are sorted before I ever see them. It helps a lot.

You can use filters to sort out emails from social media sites and newsletters, so that they aren’t the first things you see. If any are important to you, keep them where you’ll see them promptly, but otherwise get them out of your main inbox.

Create email templates for any responses you give regularly. I use email templates quite a bit, and they significantly simplify my responses, as many questions come in over and over again.

Organize Your Home Office

Odds are that your home office has become cluttered during the year. This is especially a problem if it’s the spot everyone throws things when getting ready for the holidays. It might even be the guest room during the holidays, and not available for you to use for a time… which can also mean a mess when guests leave.

But there’s more to it than that.

Take a look at the technology you use. Is it out of date? Should you upgrade or add on?

Do you have all of the tools you need to make things happen?

Not everything has to cost money, of course. Some productivity apps are free to use, at least at the basic level, yet will help you be far more productive.

Don’t only consider the technology in our home office, however. Consider the furnishings.

A comfortable and functional home office can help you be far more productive and worth an investment in appropriate supplies and furnishings. Anything in your home office that is getting in the way of your productivity should be replaced.

Consider your office chair, for example. This one is a current focus of mine because I found out how incredibly uncomfortable my husband’s office chair is. He doesn’t work at home, so it’s not the priority mine would be, but wow, his chair is hard to sit in for any length of time.

An ergonomic office chair will allow you to work comfortably for longer. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably more productive.

Similarly, a good sit-stand desk will allow you to change positions and still keep working. It can be an excellent investment. There are a number of sit-stand desks that simply go on top of your current desk, so you don’t need an entirely new desk.

Commit To Action

Don’t just think up what you’d like to do. Commit to it. Write it out if that helps you. Keep track somehow of your progress. Hold yourself accountable.

Take a look at the things that have been slowing you down. What has kept you from being productive? How can you avoid the problem in the future?

Committing to action is a key part of planning for the new year. Plans are nothing without action.

In a way, committing to action is much like setting goals, as I suggested at the start of this post. But it’s action that takes goals from dream to reality.

What Are Your Plans For The New Year?

Have you made plans to grow your online business in the new year? What items are most important to you?

The post Are You Planning For The New Year Yet? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Working at home successfully doesn’t come quickly to all of us. Many people have to try several opportunities, whether they are stay at home jobs or home business opportunities before they find the right match for their availability and income needs. Learning to work at home doesn’t come that easy for many people.

It’s often a school of hard knocks before you really get it. You may feel like a failure for months or years before you really get things moving the way you’d like to.

Don’t be Ashamed of Falling for Scams

Falling for a work at home scam is perhaps one of the hardest knocks you can take when you’re looking for the right way to work at home. It’s embarrassing when you realize that you’ve fallen for a work at home scam. It happens to lots of us. That doesn’t mean you’re destined to fail as a work at home parent. It means only that you made a mistake.

The only way you fail by falling for a work at home scam is if you don’t learn anything from the experience. It may be painful, especially if you have to admit monetary losses to a spouse or other family members, but it’s something you have to do.

If you fall for a scam, look hard at what made it possible. There are a lot of different reasons why people fall for scams. Here are a few:

• Greed – the money looked so good you had to try.
• Deception – the scam successfully imitated a legitimate opportunity
• Laziness – the work looked so easy!
• Scarcity – you believed the marketing hype that told you it was limited.
• Too trusting – you were too willing to believe.
• Desperation – you need money badly.
• Fear – the scam hits right on something you fear.

Some people find avoiding scams to be the most difficult part of learning to work at home. I once had someone contact me repeatedly, concerned that a particular opportunity was a scam. I confirmed that it was, and explained why.

The person then asked me if another opportunity was a scam.

Not only was it a scam, it was essentially the same scam. I explained the warning signs again. They sent me a third opportunity to look at for them.

You guessed it. Same scam.

Some people want so badly to work at home that they have trouble being sensible about it. They can’t see what’s right in front of them. You have to learn how to look at these things carefully so that you catch the warning signs.

The prevalence of work at home scams is why it is so very important to really think before signing up with any opportunity. Do your research. Ask around. This will help keep you from falling for scams.

You May Not Always Earn What You Hope to Earn

Whether you find a work at home job, do freelance work or start some other sort of home business, you probably won’t always earn what you hope to earn. It’s not a good feeling to come up short on your goals, but you have to be realistic. It takes time to get things to where you really want them to be.

Be realistic with your financial goals, and don’t give up on them easily. You probably wouldn’t make your dream income working outside the home right off either. Most of us have to work up to it.

Sometimes you may have to accept lower pay to get started. Don’t do this for too long, and don’t go absurdly low.

It amazes me how often people suggest doing online tasks that pay well under minimum wage. Sure, they’re saying to do it in your free time, but isn’t it better to find work that pays better even then?

Some jobs have a learning curve where you’ll earn less than minimum wage at first, but as you improve, so does your income.

Transcriptionists often face that problem. I remember when I first started out as a medical transcriptionist. It was difficult to earn more than a few bucks an hour. But I quickly improved to where I could earn $15+ per hour.

The learning curve was worth it in that case. If your pay won’t increase significantly with experience, the low pay won’t be worth it.

You Won’t Always Have Perfect Cooperation and Respect for What You Do From Family and Friends

Supportive family and friends are a huge help when you work at home. It’s hard to get everyone to take you seriously when so many people you know are certain that you’re getting scammed, or it won’t work out, or just don’t think what you’re doing is real work.

What matters is that you take it seriously.

The people you know will take their cues from you on how to treat your work. A few may never get it, but the more seriously you take your work, the more seriously most others will take it too.

Talk to your spouse and children about what you need from them. They’re the most important part of your support network, as they are the most likely to be in the house with you when you need to work.

Working at Home Doesn’t Always Mean Working When You Want

There’s the old bit about how you can set your own hours when you work at home. It’s one of the most appealing parts of working at home. The problem is that it’s not entirely true.

Many people are dismayed to find out how many hours it really takes to successfully work at home. It’s not easy. You may work more hours than you would have outside the home. You can’t always choose which ones you want, at least not if you want to bring in an income. Sometimes your work hours are set by the needs of the kind of work you’re doing.

Working at home also tends to blend into daily life and family time. Your work is always right there. Learning to separate work and family time takes practice.

It’s even rougher when you have infants and toddlers who really need your attention. You may find their needs and the needs of your job or business don’t mix too well. Despite any intentions otherwise, many work at home parents do resort to paid childcare so that they can get work done. That’s not a failure. That’s dealing with reality.

Fortunately, you often will have flexibility. Be prepared, however, to deal with the times when you need to sacrifice some of the fun times to earn a living.

Self Discipline May Not Come Naturally

It takes a lot of self discipline to work at home. There are a lot of distractions. Little things eat into your schedule. If you don’t have the self discipline to minimize these problems, you will have a hard time learning to work at home successfully.

You can’t rely on feedback from your employer if you have a work at home job. It may not come in time.

Self discipline is even more important if you’re running a home business. Your success depends in large part on your self discipline. If you don’t have it, working enough hours to make money from home will be very difficult.

Setting up a comfortable home office is a huge help when it comes to self discipline. It won’t solve all of your problems, but it gives you a regular place to work.

Ideally, your home office should be quiet and have a door you can close. Closing your door when you need to work can close out a lot of distractions. Depending on what you do, you may or may not need to work in your home office every day. But it should be available to you.

But you need more.

You need the discipline to start work on time, and to work hard through the hours you need to work. Distractions abound, such as:

• Television
• Chores
• Online games
• Social media
• Friends and family
• Pets.

If self discipline is a challenge, set goals and rewards for yourself. Some should be relatively easy (but not too easy) to hit. Others should take steady effort over days, weeks or even months.

Teach yourself to work even when you don’t feel like it. You’d have to do that if you worked outside the home, after all. Take your work at home job or home business just as seriously.

Overwork Comes Too Naturally

If you have enough self discipline to work at home, you may find that you also have the tendency to work too much. Finding the right work-life balance can be difficult.

Now, this may sound like a great problem to have. And there are times when the ability and willingness to work long hours will be to your advantage. But there can also be too much of that.

When you overwork yourself, you become too tired to do a good job. This can impact your creativity, accuracy, and how fast you can work.

It also impacts your life outside work. What happens to family time when you work too much?

Boundaries matter when you work at home. You must learn to stop working and be a part of your family when your work day is done.

Sure, there may be times when those long hours are necessary, and even a benefit to your family in the long run. But they shouldn’t happen all of the time.

Expenses Catch You By Surprise

Working at home can save you a lot of money. You don’t drive to work every day. You can dress however you like most days. But there may be some expenses you haven’t considered.

Work At Home Job Expenses

Some work at home jobs will provide you will all the equipment you need. They may even help pay for your internet connection.

Others will require you to provide your own equipment. This is especially true if you’re considered an independent contractor rather than an employee.

If you provide your own equipment and need to repair or replace something, that’s on you. When it’s time to upgrade, that’s on you. If you don’t own a piece of equipment you need, you guessed it, that’s on you.

Some work at home jobs provide on the job training or will help you keep up your skills with ongoing training. Others will require that you get your own training.

These are some of the work at home expenses you might not be expecting:

You’re working at home, kids in the background. Over time, you come to realize that it’s just not working. They’re too distracting.

Trading childcare or having family members help out turn out to be not enough. It’s time to pay for daycare.

You may have to spend some money getting set up to your employer’s standards:

You have a nice home office setup, and a solid wifi connection. But your employer requires a wired internet connection. You have to pay to run a cable to your home office.  This may be as simple as finding a long enough cable for the job, or as expensive as having a professional set you up.

Home Business Expenses

If you are running your own home business, of course all of these expenses will fall on you. It can be a very good idea, in fact, to budget for training to improve your skills. You can improve your business much more quickly if you learn new skills from someone else than if you try to figure it out on your own.

You’ve tried your hand at social media marketing. Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram… you’ve tried, but you just aren’t getting results. You’ve heard about the amazing results other people get from social media, so naturally you want to do better too.

Time to figure out which social media training course is right for your needs.

Don’t forget basic advertising expenses:

Social media marketing isn’t enough.  Time to buy some ads!

Home business expenses can add up, even though the basic costs of hosting your website are quite affordable.

Some things can wait on your budget, which is nice when you’re starting on a shoestring. But many of the things you can do to improve your home business a little more quickly will cost money. They also aren’t guaranteed to work, so your risk is increased.

Successfully advertising your site, for example, often has an expensive learning curve. You can take a course that will teach you to run successful ads, but you might not find the right mix right away.

Don’t Let Learning To Work At Home Get You Down

Learning to work at home can be frustrating, especially if you do have to go through the school of hard knocks to find success. You have to keep trying or you’ll never find the right way to earn money from home.

Don’t let the naysayers get you down. They probably mean well, but telling you over and over that you’re going to fail isn’t helpful. There may be a fine distinction between a naysayer and someone who sees something you don’t however, so don’t dismiss all criticism out of hand.

Don’t let your mistakes get you down. Learn from them. A mistake isn’t a complete failure if you learn from it.

Learning to work at home takes time. Not everyone succeeds at the first thing they try to do from home. Even if you start the perfect work at home job or home business right from the start, there are plenty of other mistakes to make. Give yourself time to make the progress you need to do better. You’ll get there.

The post Don’t Feel Bad About Learning to Work at Home in the School of Hard Knocks appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I often hear from people who want to work at home, and that’s as far as they’ve gotten with it. They seem to want me to tell them what to do. Know what? I can’t do that. I don’t know what kind of work at home job or home business is right for a particular person. That’s your problem. You need to think it out, look at your skills and interests, and start researching the possibilities. Once you’re there, I can probably give some better tips. Just get those first ideas for working at home, and you’ve got a start.

With all that said, here are some ideas to perhaps get you going. Maybe one of these ideas for working at home will help you. It’s not a comprehensive list of work at home ideas, but it’s a start. Oh, and yes, there will be affiliate links in the post here, but it’s potential value to readers that gets links in this post, not whether or not I get paid. There will be non-affiliate links too, in other words.

Work at Home Jobs

As always, don’t pay for a work at home job. Sometimes you may legitimately have to pay for a background check, but look into the opportunity before you do so, as that’s always a risky proposition.

You may need to get training on your own for some of these jobs as well. The training isn’t done with the employer – you have to attend classes at a school or find a good online course. You have a lot of options now to gain the skills you need for the job you want.

Data Entry

Data entry is one of the classics lots of people look at when they want to work at home. It sounds easy, and you can find lots of ads promising you big bucks for filling in simple forms.

The reality of this one isn’t quite so simple. There are indeed true work at home data entry jobs out there, but they don’t pay the big bucks, and they’re on the scarce side. I have some companies listed here on this site, but no idea who’s hiring at any point (as with all other work at home job opportunities) so don’t ask me. You may do better with one of the freelance sites, taking on an individual, usually short term assignment.

If the “job” is filling out ad forms for affiliate commissions, get better advice. Affiliate marketing is great when it works, but it’s not a job and it’s not that easy to make a living at it for most people. At the very least, there’s a tough learning curve and if you’re doing pay per click ads it can get really, really expensive before you master it.

There are better alternatives out there if you think data entry is the one work at home skill you have. You can do more than you think if you give yourself the chance. You need to look at more ideas for working at home.

Customer Service/Telemarketing

Customer service is one of the other hugely popular work at home jobs right now. It doesn’t take a lot of special skills, so many people feel comfortable trying for customer service work at home jobs. You need a completely quiet place to work, a desktop computer compatible with requirements set by potential employers (usually Windows of a reasonably recent sort), a high speed internet connection, a landline telephone, and a good quality, noise cancelling headset telephone that connects directly to the wall outlet (no wireless).

The need for quiet makes customer service a challenging job to do at home with children. Kids aren’t always quiet when you need them to be. Neither are pets. Sometimes even your spouse can be difficult, not to mention the folks mowing their lawn across the street. That’s why you must have a headset telephone that cancels out most background noises.

Medical Coding

If you want to do medical coding from home, you will need training and experience. That’s an absolute. I have yet to see any employers that will train you on the job from home. Once you have that, however, there are some excellent work at home medical coding opportunities out there.

Medical Transcription

Medical transcription is where I got my start working at home. I still cautiously recommend medical transcription, but it’s getting trickier as times change. Electronic medical records have really changed some parts, and you have to be prepared for that. That said, there are still jobs out there. Just remember that you have to get a good quality medical transcription education first, and make sure it prepares you for the current situation.

Legal or General Transcription

Legal and general transcription may be options as well for those who type well. While it is possible to get into general transcription without training if you’re sufficiently determined, I strongly suggest you take the free course from Transcribe Anywhere to get a feeling for what’s required.

You will almost certainly want training for legal transcription. Transcribe Anywhere has a course for legal transcription, including a free mini course so you can decide if that’s what you want to do before spending any money on it.

Transcription is a great alternative for working at home. I think it’s a much better choice than data entry, and there are far more jobs in transcription at home than data entry in my experience.

Bookkeeper/Accountant

Lots of people and companies need a good bookkeeper or accountant. If you have the skills, you can take it home. You may need to meet with clients in person at times, but much of the work may be done at home.

Tax season is a very busy time for bookkeepers and accountants, of course. You’ll need to consider how many clients you can handle even when they all need help around the same time.

Computer Programmer/Software Developer

My oldest sister used to do computer programming from home. I know it’s entirely possible, even though she eventually decided it wasn’t for her. You have to have the skills already, but if you’re a programmer, you don’t necessarily have to go to the office anymore. You can find a company that lets employees work from home instead.

Teacher

Not all teachers work at school. There are charter virtual schools which hire teachers to work primarily from their homes. Meetings with students and parents may be required, but the bulk of the work can be done from your home. In most programs, you do need a teaching credential for this work.

Online Tutor

If you don’t want to go all the way to being a teacher, there are also companies which hire online tutors. You may still need that teaching credential, however. There are a number of companies, however, that do not require a teaching credential for their tutors. Read the job description and requirements carefully so that you only apply for jobs that you’re qualified for. You’re only wasting time if you apply for jobs you aren’t qualified for.

Translator Or Interpreter

It’s a big world out there, and sometimes a translator or interpreter is needed to get through it all. Translators can work from home for a particular business or service, or strike out on their own as a freelancer. You will need to be fluent in both languages you deal with as a translator.

Many interpreters work from home over the phone. You’ll want a good setup so that you can hear clearly and be heard clearly. You might be interpreting between a patient and doctor, for example, and it’s very important to get things right.

Mystery Shopper

Most mystery shoppers don’t earn all that much, but the pay per job can be decent if it’s close enough to your home. It’s a nice way to get out of the house while earning some money. Be aware of the many scams in the mystery shopping arena and make sure you deal with reputable companies. Some people do fairly well, but it takes time to get to where you earn good money.

Health Care

Nurses may be able to work from home answering health related questions on the phone. Nurses can also do case management from home. Most positions require that you be a registered nurse in the state you reside in.

Technical Support

Technical support can be like a customer service position in some ways, except you’re dealing with much more technical information. The pay can be better. Some technical support jobs require a college degree or certification.

Be prepared to deal with problems ranging from the simple to the complex. People call tech support for many reasons, and some of them will have very little understanding of what you need them to do to help solve the problem.

Website Developer

Do you enjoy creating websites? Know your HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and so forth? You may be able to set up a business developing websites for other businesses or find a work at home job as a website developer.

This is one option that many people do a lot of their marketing locally. Not all small, local businesses have websites and may be very interested in having one developed for them. It’s a highly affordable marketing tool, even after the expense of the website.

Graphic Designer

Whether you’re creating a logo for a website or a photo spread for a magazine, graphic designers don’t necessarily have to work from a big office. You can do quite a bit of this on your own for clients or be a work at home graphic designer for a company.

Alternatively, make great designs and sell them on Teepublic, CafePress, Zazzle, or many other websites.

Virtual Assistant

Good at doing things around the office, like handling emails, appointment setting, data entry, online research and so forth? There’s pretty good demand for virtual assistants who can handle a variety of business tasks. Take this course if you want to learn how to be a successful virtual assistant quickly.

Photographer

If you love taking photographs, you can make the most of that by becoming a photographer. You’ll need to develop a good portfolio, and it’s often best to specialize. Some prefer being a wedding photographer while others prefer family photos, for example. Certainly, you can do a few different types of photography, but it may be easier to build a reputation if there’s one you really specialize in.

You don’t have to just take pictures for sale to a particular client. You can also take photos and put them up for sale on stock photography websites. The income from these may be small per sale, but it can build up if you provide an interesting, useful selection of photographs.

Writer

There are lots of opportunities out there for writers, whether you want to be a freelance writer or work for a single employer. There’s also a lot of competition because so many people want to work as writers. You have to find a way to stand out.

It’s a good idea to specialize as a writer. Consider your experience to figure out what areas are best for you to specialize in. You can write articles, ebooks, reports, resumes, and much more. You may want to consider this course, 30 Days To Freelance Writing Success, to get things moving.

Marketing

Ever look at the copy on a sales page and pick apart just how they convince visitors to buy? Are you a convincing writer yourself? You may do well running your own website selling products or you can do marketing for others. A great copywriter can earn very good money.

Social Media Marketer

Just how much of a chatterbox are you on Twitter, Facebook, and other social websites? Are you always finding the great links to share? You may do well marketing other people’s businesses on social media for them. You can be a social media marketer as a regular job, freelance and help several companies with their social media marketing, or use it as a strategy to promote your own online business.

Drive

Driving isn’t working at home as such, but if you don’t need to do everything at home, you can work for Lyft or Uber as a driver. These work if flexibility is your goal and you don’t have to be at home all of the time.

Freelance Websites

This is where the plus in the article title comes from. Just about any job you can do at home, you can find through a freelance website. They’re great for building a portfolio or resume when you’re just getting started, and you can make a living just through freelancing when you’re good at it.

Many freelance websites have you create a profile, then you bid on jobs. Don’t obsess over being the lowest bidder all the time. You don’t want the jobs that don’t pay what you’re worth; they’re reputed to be the most difficult customers because they want so much for less.

Here are a few websites you can check out for freelance job listings. Some are the bidding sort, others are set up other ways. You may need to work at the office at least part of the time for some freelance jobs, but many can be done entirely from home.

Guru
Craigslist (beware of scams)
Upwork
People Per Hour
Freelancer.com
Hire My Mom
Home Job Stop
iFreelance
Toptal
Freelance Writing Jobs

And many more, just do a search with your favorite search engine.

If all you put down for your skills are common things such as writing skills, you’ll have a lot of trouble finding jobs. Some freelance sites won’t accept you with skills that are too common, as they have too many people bidding on those jobs already. Give some real thought to how you apply to freelance sites as well as your portfolio. It’s a good idea to have an online portfolio outside of the freelance sites so more potential clients can find you and review your work. Starting a blog can help you put your skills on display.

Home Business Ideas

There are a ton of possibilities when it comes to running a home business. Strictly speaking, freelancing is a home business too, but many people think of them separately, and so I’m treating them separately.

Now, you can combine a few things to make your home business work its best. You can have a blog, do affiliate marketing, and have an email list that you send special offers out to. You can have your own product and do affiliate marketing at the same time. These things aren’t exclusive; just make sure you learn to do each part before you add on another thing. Taking on too much at once with a business makes it easier to fail.

Affiliate Marketing

This is just one form of online business. There are several other models, but affiliate marketing appeals to a lot of people. No worries about taking payments, dealing with inventory or shipping products – it just sounds easy.

As with any other home business, there’s quite a learning curve, and many affiliate marketers make under $100 per month, from what I’ve read. In other words, don’t assume you’ll make a fortune, no matter what the promos say. One way or another, you have to learn to market, whether it’s online, offline, social media, pay per click, buying ads on other websites or creating your own.

On the other hand, you can market just about any product you can think of. Affiliate marketing is great if you want to run a website about your hobby – just refer people to sites that sell the things necessary for the hobby and will give you a commission. Make sure you keep your recommendations honest – there’s no quicker way to lose a reputation than to recommend junk.

I suggest taking an online affiliate marketing course to get going. It’s not quite as simple as throwing a few links on a page or into your social media stream, believe me! You’ll earn more as an affiliate if you know what you’re doing.

Blogging

There are lots and lots of bloggers out there now. It’s a popular home business model. Affiliate marketing can be a part of it, but you can also sell ad space, get paid directly to promote products or use it to build upon another part of your business.

Most bloggers won’t hit it big. It should be obvious that we can’t all be big name bloggers, but with all the dreams people have about their home businesses, I think it bears mentioning. Keep working on your blog, and you get a decent following and earn a good living, if not the spectacular money some bloggers earn. It doesn’t cost a lot to start a blog, making it worth the effort.

Email Marketing

Nope, email isn’t dead. It’s not even suffering too badly. Just because a lot of people enjoy reading blogs and receive posts through an RSS reader, or keep up with things on Facebook doesn’t mean they don’t use email anymore. It’s still pretty strong.

There are a lot of rules to follow as an email marketer. Don’t buy a list. That’s a great way to get in trouble for spamming. Don’t just send emails from your home computer either. Most ISPs really don’t like that, and may limit how many you send, plus if you get accused of spamming, you can lose your entire internet connection.

It’s much better to go with a service such as Aweber or Get Response. They provide the HTML for your subscription forms, handle spam complaints and unsubscribes, and so forth. The main thing you do is write and send out your emails, and work on attracting people to your list legitimately. Keep it legit, as either company will terminate any account they feel is getting subscribers the wrong way.

Make Videos

Video marketing is usually a portion of your overall business. Unless you get a lot of views, you aren’t going to earn a living from your videos without selling something, whether you do so as an affiliate or sell a product of your own creation. Sufficiently popular videos may also earn an income from ads placed on the video. YouTube is the popular site for posting videos, of course, but you have to watch out for the rules. Google’s pretty strict, and accounts can be deleted.

Take a little time to learn YouTube marketing to improve your chances of success with YouTube and similar sites. Learning from someone who knows how to get things moving can help you avoid a lot of the mistakes others will make.

Product Creation

The wonderful thing about online marketing is that it’s really easy to make your own product. Ebooks, software and apps can sell very well online, and may not be all that hard to make. You need an idea, then you need to take action to make that product a reality. Then start marketing. As with any other business, it will probably be tough at first, you may fail a few times, but keep at it and you might make it.

Life Coach

Many people enjoy working with a coach to get their career, life or home business running better. If you’ve had some success and enjoy sharing your skills, you may be able to earn a living as a coach. You can take a course to learn how to be a life coach and get your business going.

Daycare Operator

How about going the traditional way? Running a daycare from your home has been around a very long time. The hours are long, the pay may not be great, but you’re with your kids.

Network Marketing

This is another traditional way to earn money from home. From classics such as Mary Kay, Avon and Watkins, to the floods of newer network marketing companies out there, you can have fun selling products to family, friends, referrals and possibly even online.

Sell Crafts

Whether you sell on Etsy, eBay or elsewhere, it’s much easier than it used to be to make crafts and sell them online. There’s lots of competition now, but that means lots of opportunities as well.

Store Owner

You can run your own store selling physical products. You’ll need appropriate licensing for your area, a wholesale source for products, a way to take online payments (Paypal works, but you may want to consider other credit card processors as well), and a website to display your products.

Now, you don’t necessarily have to have the products in your home. Some people prefer to use dropshippers, so as to simplify the shipping process and the inventory. Getting stuck with a bunch of something that didn’t sell is a pain, after all. You’ll still have to deal with customer service issues, store promotion and so forth.

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn. What types of work at home do you think are worth it?

The post 30+ Ideas For Working at Home appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

When we bought our new house last October, one of the things I adored about it was the space for a home office. It’s a nice size room in an awkward space for any other use – that is to say, pretty much the perfect space for a home office. Just a little private from the main flow of the house. Naturally, its first use was to store all the stuff we didn’t have a place for right away when we moved in. But no more. I have it pretty much cleaned out, and the first piece of furniture in.

The first piece of furniture isn’t office furniture as such, however. It’s a futon, because this room will also be a guest room. Not often, but family circumstances dictated that I make it ready as a guest room even before I buy a desk and get it in there, because it may be needed for a guest soon. But the futon folds up into a rather nice couch, and so I can use the room itself as intended while we don’t have company.

Yesterday was the first day I was able to do that, and it was wonderful! My husband wasn’t feeling well after a blood draw at a doctor appointment, so he left work early and came home. I arrived home from grocery shopping, and there he was in the living room, sitting on the couch watching a movie. He offered to turn it off, but I pointed out that my office was now a perfectly good option for me.

The futon isn’t the perfect solution for my office, but I have plans to buy a standing desk soon. I even think I know which one – the price is great, and the company even has an office less than 10 miles from me, which was a big shock. Usually nothing is close to me except maybe the grocery store.

Still, I was able to work pretty well in there. A door to close really does help with distractions, which I have known for a long time. Before, the bedroom was my only choice if I needed to close my door, and that’s just not as good as a dedicated office space.

With summer vacation not all that far off, I really have to get this office set up the rest of the way. My desk will take some time to arrive, but it looks as though I’ll be able to pick it up rather than pay for delivery, which is wonderful. Here’s hoping I can have a really productive summer in my new home office!

The post I Can Finally Use My New Home Office appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

A home business can be easy to start. A good home business, on the other hand, takes more time to develop. It’s a long process, with no guarantee of success. However, there are some things you must have for the best chance at growing a successful home business.

1. A Why

Why are you starting a home business? Money, something to do, work you love, pride in what you’ve created… what are your reasons?

Money usually isn’t enough of a reason. For all you may want to earn more money, may need more money, it may not be as motivating as you think. Do something you don’t enjoy just for the money, and it eventually gets harder to do. It’s much better to earn money from home doing something you enjoy. It may take more time, but if you succeed, it will be a lot easier to keep going.

2. The Right Business

You won’t succeed with just any business. It’s easier to succeed in the right business… for you. Not for your friend, not for that guru online bragging about earning six figures a year. The right one for you.

Consider your work experience. What do you know how to do?

Consider your hobbies. Could one become a business?

Consider your family’s needs. What works with the time you have available? Will you need to work with the kids around? Are they in school part of the day? Will you need to pay for childcare?

Consider yourself. If you don’t enjoy going out and talking to people about your business, don’t pick one that requires it. If you hate being isolated with your computer all the time, don’t limit your business to online activities. Be sure the business is something you can enjoy doing.

Consider your target audience. None of the rest matters if you don’t have people interested enough in your business that you can make money from it. Passion is great, a passionate target audience is better. Fortunately, if you’re passionate about something you can make into a business, there are probably others too. You just have to do the research to figure out how to reach them.

3. A Reasonable Schedule

While you don’t need to have every minute scheduled, or even every hour, some sort of schedule for your work is a very good idea. Without one, it’s far too easy to slack off and get too little work done in a day or even a week.

Make it as detailed or loose as you prefer. Some people love their to-do lists – others hate them. Your schedule should work for you. If it pushes you a little bit, that’s a good thing, but if it interferes with more important things, rewrite it.

4. Family Support

Any kind of business is challenging, at home or not. But to run one without family support is all but impossible. There may be concerns, worries about expenses, the amount of time it takes, the risks and so forth. Talk about them. Get support where you need it, address family concerns where you can.

This can especially mean help around the house. If you’ve been a stay at home mom for a while, everyone may be used to you doing everything around the house. Running a home business means the rest of the family may need to do a little more. Make sure everyone knows to expect some changes and maybe some inconvenience. If you keep trying to do it all, you’re only making it harder on yourself, and that’s rarely necessary.

5. A Workable Budget

Running a home business usually involves spending some money. It may be a lot, it may be a little. Either way, you need a budget, money you know is okay to spend on your business. Expenses may include (but aren’t limited to):

• Domain name and hosting
• Website design
• Business cards
• Computer
• Software
• Product supplies
• Shipping
• Training

You may not need to spend money on all of these things. You may be able to put up a basic website without hiring someone to do it for you, for example… then again, it could be money very well spent to have someone else do it. You may be able to find enough free information online to get a good start to your business without paying for training.

Whenever you choose to go the free route on things you business needs, make sure it makes sense for you and your business. Free can be the worst choice at times. Any time you choose free, be sure it really makes sense. Your time is valuable, and free often means you’re spending quite a bit more of your time on something that spending money could speed up significantly. The right purchase makes sense. Remember, just because you can do something for free or close to it doesn’t mean you should.

6. Time Off

It’s very easy to spend too much time working on your home business. it can feel as though you’re losing valuable work time when you take a break, whether it’s just 10 minutes, an evening, or a nice family vacation. Time off is important. It allows you to refresh your mind. People are more productive when they take an appropriate amount of time off work, not only each day, but over the long term.

Plan for breaks throughout your work day, and have an end to your working hours every day. There may be times when your business requires extra long hours, but don’t let it happen every day. That time off you’re avoiding may be exactly what you need to refresh your mind and get control of the problems taking so much extra time.

7. The Ability To Say “No”

Any business owner needs to know how to say “no.” No to demands on your time that you really don’t have time for. No to friends and family interrupting your work time unnecessarily. No to the household chores begging you to do them when you need to work. No to more work than you can handle.

When business is good, there may be times when you need to refuse more work or take on assistants. If you can’t handle the workload, you have to decide what to do about it. Do you refuse a client or project, or do you hire someone to help you make it happen? A virtual assistant may be a good choice to help you through these times if there’s something they can handle for you. But if you don’t want to hire help, even on a short term basis, you may have to say no when too much work is offered to you.

8. The Knowledge that You’re Not Perfect

You’re going to mess things us and get things wrong. Sometimes you’ll break all the rules you’ve set for yourself. Sometimes you’ll make bad decisions. These things happen, whether it’s a mistake in your business or in how you deal with your family.

Don’t let your mistakes stop you. Learn from them. Make the changes necessary to avoid the same mistake in the future and apologize as necessary. If you demand perfection of yourself all the time, you’ll never get anything done because nothing will ever be good enough.

The post 8 Things You Must Have For Your Home Business appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I came back home recently from a family vacation in Yosemite. Lots of fun, great sights, and I didn’t bring a computer or any other device to connect to the internet. True time off. Just music for in the car, and a camera for pictures. We all had a great time.

Even without my computer, I spent some time thinking about my business. Not terribly much, as there’s so much to see in Yosemite, but still, there were inspiring thoughts. Every here and there, I’d see a parallel to how things work in home and online businesses, and so I decided to share my thoughts. Obviously.

Get Started. Now.

One problem we had was getting going in the mornings. It has been years since my husband and I have gone camping, and we’d forgotten how long it can take to get things moving in the morning. My husband in particular was frustrated one morning when it took three hours from getting up to getting into the car for the day’s adventures. He had envisioned a much fuller day. It was just little things constantly getting in the way of getting the day started.

Other days we got up and got things going fairly quickly in camping terms. There’s only so fast you can heat water for oatmeal when you only have a camp stove, after all, then clean things up, getting everything back into the bear box. There’s no running off with things half done when you have to consider the local wildlife.

If procrastination is your problem, work on stopping it. Get things going, right now. Don’t let the wrong things get in your way. The sooner you take action, the sooner you’ll see the benefits. Make sure, however, that you don’t leave things half done.

It’s an Uphill Battle

This is a problem I’ve never had quite so bad when camping before. Our campsite was the least level I’ve ever seen. There was a small, flat area suitable for smaller tents, but for ours? Not a chance. We had to set up on a very definite slope. The kids ended up at the bottom of the tent each morning, and I had to inch up a couple of times on my mattress each night too. We called it the slowest slide in the world.

Night wasn’t the only time this was a problem. The fire ring was at the bottom of the slope, so the kids had to be really careful when walking around and playing, as it was all to easy to lose balance on that slope. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Home business is generally an uphill battle too. If you keep working at it, you have a good chance at making it, but you have to work hard. Things aren’t just going to happen for you as a general rule.

Take the Time to Amaze People

Yosemite is simply amazing. The granite domes and the valley formed over millions of years, through ice ages and warm periods. It took that kind of time to create a place that is so awe inspiring.

While you don’t have that kind of time to create an amazing business, you should take the time to make whatever you offer great. Be ready to amaze your audience.

Long Hikes Are Worth It

You can see a lot of Yosemite from your car, the valley shuttles or ranger-led tram tours, but if you really want to see the best of it, you have to start walking. Some hikes are easy, under a half mile, but others are many miles and a lot of climbing. It’s rough at times, but if you want to see the best parts of Yosemite, you have to do it.

Running a home business means taking on the long term too. You can take it easy, just do as others do, offer what others offer, but if you want the best home business you can possibly make, you have to get in there and work on things other people don’t bother with. You don’t have to go completely off trail (in Yosemite that can be a really bad idea), but do the extra work to discover the true potential of your business.

Sometimes You Have to Sit Down and Take a Break

There’s one problem with hiking around all day. It’s exhausting, especially for the children. Keeping things fun sometimes means sitting down and taking a break.

Do the same for yourself. Don’t overdo your work on your home business. Take breaks throughout your day. You’ll be more productive overall if you do, within reason.

Have Patience For the Skills of Others

Camping with children along is difficult, especially when hiking. Our three year old was often too tired to keep walking, and we had to keep her abilities much in mind throughout our trip. We could carry her, but only so much.

Then there was rock climbing. Our oldest daughter was quite enthusiastic about the chance to climb Lembert Dome, a little too much so. My husband had to make her stop when she wanted to keep climbing a section that was beyond either of their abilities. She didn’t want to stop, but knowing what she’d be able to manage safely, he insisted they both go down.

In business, you always have to consider the ability of others, whether it’s the abilities of the people you hire to help you with your business, or the abilities of your customers with regards to your product. It’s not helpful to assume they know more than they’re likely to, especially if they expect you to be the expert. Keep things reasonable for your customers.

Beauty Can Come From Destruction

Yosemite has dealt with some serious natural disasters through the years, such as fire and flood. Awful as these things may appear, in the long run they can benefit the park. Fires clear away old plant material, making room for new trees and meadows to grow.

The big flood in 1997 also looked like a disaster at first. You may be able to see in the picture how deep the flood waters got.

But as the ranger noted during the tour we took, the park itself benefited from the flood. It loosened up a lot of ground that had been packed down through the years. It freshened up the sandy beaches along the rivers. Certainly it meant a lot of work for humans, repairing roads and buildings damaged by the flood, but the valley itself benefited.

Think about the rough times you’ve had with your home business, or the ones that may lie ahead. How will you or did you recover? The lessons are difficult, but your business may be improved by it.

Challenge Yourself

There are hikes in Yosemite for all abilities. Some are short, simple and paved, so that even people restricted to a wheelchair can enjoy them. Others will challenge even dedicated hikers and climbers. You decide how much of a challenge you’re up for. Just remember that the best sights may take some extra effort to reach.

Challenge yourself with your home business too, if you want the best results. Don’t stay in your comfort zone. Try something new and see where it takes you.

Remember to Protect Yourself

One of the most basic precautions we took was to wear sunscreen and hats. I don’t want to think about how badly sunburned we all could have been if we skipped it while hiking Yosemite on bright, sunny, summer days. Sure there’s a lot of shade there, but there’s also a lot of places where you’re unprotected from the sun.

You also protect yourself from bears by taking the proper precautions with food and other scented items in camp. We were very careful to put everything that might possibly need to be kept from bears in our bear box. It was for our own benefit, even more than for the bears, after all.

You need to protect yourself with regard to your home business. Make sure you’re following all relevant laws. Make sure you get any necessary licensing and/or permits. Make your business the best you can, and deal with complaints and problems professionally.

Problems Can Hide Opportunities

One big problem they have at Yosemite this year is drought. There really wasn’t a lot of rain or snow this past winter, and it really shows, particularly in the waterfalls, which most years would still have been respectably sized at this time of year. Instead, most were no more than a trickle.

This was particularly clear at Yosemite Falls, usually a very impressive waterfall. From a distance, you could barely tell the rock was wet, never mind seeing that it was a waterfall. You really had to look to tell.

On the other hand, my husband and oldest daughter had a blast climbing through the rocks at its base to get up close. It turned out there was a pool of water at the base, something my husband had never seen before, despite his many visits to Yosemite through the years. What little waterfall there was fed into the pool, and it was gorgeous. The dryness allowed him to get closer to the falls than he’d normally consider, and to see something he never knew existed. He rather enjoyed the experience.

Treat problems in your business the same way. Sure, you may be having a dry period, poor sales, low traffic, whatever the problem may be, but it’s also an opportunity to learn something new. Just because you’re struggling for one reason doesn’t mean you won’t find a new way to make things work. You might discover something wonderful and new you can do for your business.

Look at Things in Different Ways

While waiting for the rest of the family to finish wandering around Lembert Dome, my tired three year old and I sat at a picnic table in the shade. She was bored, so I handed her the binoculars and showed her how to use them. Being three, she quickly became bored with looking at things at a distance, and decided to look at me. Naturally, she was disappointed that I didn’t appear clearly in the binoculars, being too close. So she did what any young child would do, and tried the other side.

“Mommy, I can see you now!” She was quite excited to discover that she could see me clearly by looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

While it’s true enough that you don’t see nearly as much stuff at a distance when you use binoculars the wrong way, there’s nothing wrong with looking at things differently. When it comes to your home business, it’s probably even a good thing. Take a fresh look at what you’re doing. Try to see it from a different perspective, such as how website visitors will see it. You might learn a lot about your business or come up with new ideas to make it better.

It’s Not Always Your Fault When You Miss an Opportunity

We took a ton of photos in Yosemite. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been there or even anyone who knows a little about the place. While you don’t want to be so focused on your camera screen that you miss the chance to really enjoy the view.

But there was one photo we would have loved to get, and it was just impossible. Driving into the valley one morning, a tour bus took its sweet time passing us. It was early enough that we were really on the alert for wildlife, hoping for some good pictures.

Sure enough, just after the bus passed us, we realized there were three deer in the meadow, a perfect photo opportunity, if only we had been able to spot them before we were almost past, and no parking places near.

It’s like that in business too. Sometimes you become aware of an opportunity too late to take full advantage of it, or to do anything about it at all. Sometimes you just can’t take advantage of an opportunity for another reason, and it’s completely out of your control. Don’t focus on what you missed – just be ready for the next opportunity.

And yes, we got other pictures of deer. None quite as classic as the meadow one could have been, but still pretty decent.

Some People Don’t Care About Getting in the Way of Others

On our very last day in Yosemite, there was a bit of a traffic jam in the valley. We speculated about what was happening – an accident, maybe? Car broken down? Road work?

Nope. Some people had pulled off the side of the road as best they could, but were still blocking the right lane. Why? To take pictures. I didn’t quite catch what they were photographing, but I was still amazed at the thoughtlessness… and just a little pleased to remember the ranger-guided valley tour tram just a few cars behind us. Hopefully things got cleared up fast after that. I’d imagine that’s an easy ticket for the ranger to write.

You’ll see a lot of that in business. Plenty of people aren’t worried about how honestly they run their online business, so long as they get what they want. Sometimes they break a few too many rules and get caught at it, but in the meantime they’ve created a problem for those around them.

It’s a Long Road

Getting to Yosemite, getting just about anywhere in Yosemite… it’s a long drive. Yosemite National Park is huge, and especially if you want to see more than just the valley, you’re in for some long drives.

This is true of running a home business too. People are always looking for shortcuts, but shortcuts don’t always work, and have risks of their own. It’s often better to plan for the long road, and keep working hard on the things that will get you where you want to go. There are amazing sights along the way anyhow.

The post How Taking a Vacation in Yosemite is Like Running a Home Business appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

When it comes to running a successful online business from your home, the money you earn is one of the big ways you decide if you’re on the right track. A lack of earnings means things aren’t going as well as they could be, so you might decide to focus even harder on bringing money in. Is that really where your focus should always be?

That depends. Are you looking for quick results or a long term business strategy?

I’ve always preferred to consider the long term with my business. That means this site, as well as my others, don’t earn as much as they could, compared to what would happen if I focused more on bringing money in. Instead, I have a business I can trust to keep going over the long term.

Here’s an example of short term thinking. You buy some cheap private label articles, drop them onto your site and add some AdSense and/or affiliate links and wait for the traffic to come in.

It sounds nice and easy, and may bring in a few dollars over time. The problem is that cheap PLR is rarely well written, and you probably aren’t the only site posting that article, which usually leads to lower search engine rankings. Quick and easy in the short term, and maybe you made some money, but not so good for the long term.

If you’re so desperate for money that you need something that will pay you quickly, you’re probably better off getting a job. It’s not fun if you have a goal of working for yourself, but sometimes working for someone else is a necessary step. Admittedly, finding a job isn’t always easy, especially in the current economy, but it’s usually easier than making a successful home business. Just think about it.

A longer term strategy is to make a site that will be interesting to visitors for a long time, especially if you can create a loyal readership. Write unique articles for it, with solid information for the niche. You can use a bit of PLR as a base, but make sure you rewrite it and maybe add some extra information to improve it. It’s more work, but it’s your own.

There’s absolutely a balance to be maintained. You need money fast, that’s just the way it is, and you have to do the things that are faster, even if they’re no good for your business long term. So long as they aren’t going to come back to bite you later, that’s not a completely bad choice. Don’t expect it to be in the thousands of dollars that quickly, but if it’s enough to keep you going, that’s good enough. Get that fast money, just don’t forget to work on your long term goals next.

Always remember that the big key to long term success is hard work. Shortcuts aren’t going to get you there. There’s no magic button to change that simple fact.

The post How Much Should You Focus on Making Money From Home? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Some people consider summer to be the slow season for home business. Moms are busier with their kids out of school, and there’s just so much warm weather to enjoy that it’s easy to slack off. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you should, however.

Not All Businesses Slow Down Significantly

Perhaps the biggest reason to not slow down the work you do on your business during the summer is that not all businesses experience a slowdown. You don’t know if a slowdown is due to it being summer or due to less effort on your part if you just take it for granted.

If you assume your business is going to slow down, it probably will. It takes effort to keep most businesses going. It’s certainly nice if the money keeps coming in even when you take a break, but you may damage your business if you simply assume a part of it is gone for the summer. That part may take longer to build back up in the fall.

Take Advantage of Any Slow Times to Improve Your Home Business

Let’s say your business does slow down significantly over the summer. Where does it say that means you should put in less effort?

If things are quieter for your business, it’s a great time to work on the parts you may not always have had time to get done. Try improving your marketing skills, update your website and networking with others in your industry. Organize your office, files, computer and tackle that email box. There’s really no benefit to sitting around just because things have slowed down a teensy bit.

Take It With You

If you’re taking your family on vacation, you may not want to leave your business entirely behind. Online businesses still have to be monitored for problems, although you can hire a virtual assistant to take care of the basics. You can also carry business cards so that when the topic comes up naturally with the people you meet on your trip, you can hand your card to them.

Of course you don’t want to ruin your vacation by overdoing the business bit, but being prepared to deal with the parts that are reasonable is a good plan. You’ll be meeting people you never would have met if you stayed at home; why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?

Prepare for Christmas

Yes, that’s a scary word during the summer. You might not be thinking about Christmas yet or the sales you hope to make at that time of year. But there’s no reason to delay your planning for it. Work now to make your holiday season more profitable.

The post Are You Slowing Down for the Summer? Why? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

The flexibility that often comes with working at home is great. You can really be there for your kids when they need you.

The only problem is that sometimes other parents want you to be there for their kids too much. A little is one thing but too much interferes with your work schedule and can feel like a burden. It’s really hard to say no once the habit is built, but sometimes you have to.

Then there are your own family and friends who can expect that you’ll be able to help them out whenever they need it. This can be incredibly disruptive to your daily routine, but when they know your schedule is flexible, they don’t like to take no for an answer.

When to Say No

We all like to help our family and friends when they need us. The problem is defining when they need our help versus times that they need to find another solution because it’s taking too much of our own time. You have to know it’s okay for you to speak up when you can’t help out because it doesn’t fit in your own schedule.

Watching someone else’s kids is one of the most common issues for work at home moms, and whether it works for you or not depends on the situation. Watching a baby takes a lot more care than watching an 8 year old who plays well with your own 8 year old, and that’s a very different situation from watching an 8 year old who doesn’t get along with your own 8 year old.

The main point to remember is that if you don’t take your at home job or home business seriously, no one else will. If watching someone’s child or children interferes with your ability to earn a living, that’s a problem. You can’t watch their child, or at least not without appropriate compensation, and if you earn enough from your work, there may not be reasonable compensation that can be paid for the loss of work hours. Not that you can’t be there for emergencies, but when daily or even weekly visits don’t work out, speak up!

Even if you aren’t earning much, your ability to work and eventually create an income makes your work time worth something. Don’t treat your business as less than serious just because the income isn’t there yet, and don’t let anyone tell you it’s less just because the income isn’t there. The income won’t be there until you make your business work. That takes serious, focused work time. You can’t be doing too many things for others when you need to do your own work, just as you wouldn’t if you were working a job outside the home.

In fact, that’s not a bad criteria in a lot of cases. If you wouldn’t be taking time off work to help from an outside the home job, is it a situation where you should be taking time off your at home work? You should be treating your at home work just as seriously.

When to Say Yes

Sometimes you’re going to say yes when people ask you for help. Hopefully it’s something that fits into your work schedule, so you can still get the work done while helping someone who needs it. Other times, it’s just that the need is that great.

When it comes to watching someone else’s kids, sometimes it’s to your benefit to agree to help. That would be when having another child or children over means your own will need you less, and so you can work more. That usually doesn’t work out if done on a daily basis, in my experience, but occasional friends over have given me some wonderfully quiet days with my older kids. They’re having too much fun with friends to be trying for my attention. Better yet, friends often want to trade times, so you can get still quieter time by having your kids at their friend’s house. That can be worth a little lost work time.

Overall, the most important thing to remember is that you have to take your work seriously to get others to take it seriously. That’s how you can decide when to help out and when to remind people that you’re working just as they are.

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