When it comes to running a small business from home around your family, it may seem like an impossible task. Sure, it may be hard to find the right work and home life balance in the beginning. But having the advantage of being your boss and setting your own hours around your family can be so rewarding on its own.

Regardless of the type of business you are going into, when you choose to become your own boss and pick your home as your workplace, you need to be strict with yourself when it comes to finding your own working schedule and what does and doesn’t work for you. That doesn’t mean you can’t make your job easier. You just need to have the conviction and dedication to focus on making a success of your new small business.

Hours

Setting your hours after years of being told what time to start and leave work can almost be like you are a kid in a candy shop all over again. But you need to set your hours and stick to them as much as possible. It may be that you work on an evening when the children are asleep, or you choose to work looser office hours around school runs. Whatever time frame you select needs to be consistent and reliable so your customers and clients know when you are around and can be there to help them with queries and orders.

It may be helpful to have an out of hours automated response on private messages on social media, or our emails inbox to inform new and existing customers of your working hours. This will help you set a level of professionalism from the beginning.

Use timekeeping software and block out any distractions that will pull your attention away from the job at hand. StayFocusd is a Chrome extension that can help you reduce the amount of time spent on time-wasting sites such as social media.

Accounts

Keeping full up to date accounts of your income and expenditure is essential for any business. More so when you are a solo outfit, knowing exactly where your money is going and what is coming in can help you budget for your expenses as well as helping you to pay yourself a wage.

If you do a lot of driving, either to source materials, visit new, potential and existing customers or to and from a secondary workplace, fuel cards such as a DCI card for Ireland can help you keep track of your spending when it comes to fuel.

Using a third-party software can also be beneficial for tracking receipts and monitoring income and expenditure to help take the burden off yourself and reduce the stress involved in filing your tax return at the end of the financial year.

If you prefer to keep a physical copy, taking pictures on your mobile phone can back up any lost, missing or incorrectly entered data at a later date.

Outsourcing

From day one, you need to be realistic about will and won’t work for you when it comes to how much work you can physically do in the time that you have. There are reasons why new businesses have employees, and this is because one person can’t do everything. If you are not in a position to hire staff members, then outsourcing is your next best option.

Make a list of mundane tasks that don’t explicitly need your attention. Then look at the types of companies that can take on this type of work for you. Yes, it will come with a fee, but what you are getting in return is the expertise and qualifications of readily trained staff who are professionals in their field and need no training when it comes to the task in hand.

Alternatively, you can opt for SaaS (software as a service) which can run automated tasks on your behalf and free up some of your time to focus on the areas of the company that need your full attention.

Before you choose software or hire a company to take control of aspects of our company, check thoroughly that what they offer meets your needs and can run with all little input from you as possible. If you are unsure of what type of tasks in your business you can automate or outsource, these are a few suggestions;

• Social Media
• Marketing
• Web Design and maintenance
• SEO
• Accounting
• Call Handling
• Emails
• Message Responses via social media

Starting a new business is hard enough without putting more pressure on yourself than you need to. It is worth remembering that it may take some time to adjust to your new commitments and find a schedule and working pattern that works for you and our family. Take your time, and don’t be afraid to experiment until you find a way of working that you are happy with and can stick to.