My Pretty Pillows

Work at Home Mom New Year Resolution

Yes, The New Year.  We all know what that means.  A new year resolution.  While weight and healthly habits are usually on the top of everybody's mind I wanted to talk about a New Year Resolution that will benefit your home based business website.  I am sure we all have a few things that we would like to change and or focus on for our home based business this year.   I know I have many, and always wanting to improve each year. 

There can be plenty of things you might want to do to help boost your work at home business. Or maybe even just simplify it! Here are some ideas for work at home mom's to do if you are not already doing so. "The action" is just example tips of how to take action on your resolution.

The Resolution:

I will promote my work at home business more online and off.

The Action:

• Offline: Mention my business to at least one new potential customer a day,  giving catalogs and business cards out if you have them.

• Online: Network more, and our create new content on my site.   Networking and content are so crucial for your website. 

The Resolution:

I will organize my work at home business and my time spent online and offline.  Plenty of us work at home mom's who are online find ourselves not very organized when it comes to what we will do online everyday. Working around kids you might find yourself either grabbing a hour here and there each day to jump online and then when you get off the computer you realized you might have answered a few emails and did not really productively do much more then that. 

So much for networking and organizing your business that day like you had intended! 

The Action:

• Start Making a Schedule.  Use your time more wisely by writing down what you want to accomplish that day so you can check it off and go right to working on the next task right away.   You might want to have certain days for website upkeep, advertising, shipping out products, etc.  There is definitely a plus side to creating a schedule.

• Create a Card File. I have a card file with index cards in it that helps me stay organized.  I write down all sites I belong to that need passwords. Whether it's just a fun message board I belong to, or my credit card sites I have the user names and passwords handy to look for quickly when needed. An index card file can be used for many more things, such as keeping list of customers, you can even write on the back there favorite product they buy so you remember to mention that 'favorite lotion', 'favorite coffee', 'favorite note paper' that they like to buy from you when you next talk with them or send them a catalog.

Organizing your time online and offline:

• Do you grab a hour here and a hour there online that it makes you forget what you were trying to concentrate on?

• Perhaps time slips away and you found you spent hours and hours online and now the look of your house is paying?

Do you try and reply to emails with a baby or small child in your lap?  Working at home and being a mom is another task itself to think of.  You don't leave the house and go to work and have to worry about constant interruptions, house chores, or a child wanting to climb up on your lap as your trying to work. The whole reason for working at home is to be a work at home mom right? To be there for our kids when they need us, enjoy not having a boss and answering only to ourselves if we don't get a task done each day because we were busy with the kids or whatever. I love being a work at home mom, but to be a successful work at home mom takes a little skill. 

You need to plan your time. I like to work late at night when the kids go to bed. This allows for a couple hours of working without having to stop for other reasons. I save the important things for that time. During the day, I might catch up on emails, update a few things on my site and do some smaller tasks. This might work for you, or maybe early morning is better, or while kids are at school if you have school aged kids. Whatever time that you know would be best for you to spend a couple hours of really working for your home based business. This is replying to emails, getting flyers made and ready if you use them, updating your site, delivering orders, placing orders, mailing out packages, etc. If you can set a certain time each day for your work, I am sure you will find it much more easier to accomplish more tasks each week and you will see the benefits. The same can go for housecleaning too, I like to wake up and start cleaning the house first so during the day if I do jump online to answer emails I know I do not have other tasks waiting for me and it's ok if I can get a few business things done during my kids nap.

Whatever your new year resolution may be this year, I hope you accomplish it!

Article Written By: Christina Bauman, owner of www.myprettypillows.com