Work From Home Rules
In March 2005 we started a Property Management Company from our study, we had a 2-year-old that was in and out of hospital with health issues and didn’t often get a full night’s sleep. However, after leaving our previous work and travelling for three months around Europe we needed to get back to earning another income.
Having always owned rental property that we managed ourselves we decided after a friend approached us that perhaps this was the business for us to start. Michelle gained her real estate license and off we went networking for new business.
To keep initial overheads low, we operated from our home, and it didn’t take long for us to realise there are plenty of distractions, like putting the washing on, having a dip in the pool, friends popping in for a chat, caring for our son and a personal favourite, taking a nanna nap in the afternoon, thinking we were still in Spain! The first couple of years of any business is so critical as you are trying to establish your brand and taking too much downtime means that someone else is out there signing up your potential clients.
So, we sat down and established some working from home rules:
1. We started our son in Childcare 3 days a week (he loved it).
2. Must dress smart casual for the working day not just for an appointment.
3. Set a time for a lunch break.
4. Establish working hours, we decided to have Fridays as a half day until it got busier.
5. Hold a weekly meeting to track tasks and achievements.
6. Tell family and friends your working hours.
7. No house chores to be done in working hours.
8. No Nanna Naps!!
Establishing these guidelines also ensured we stayed disciplined and worked towards what we were trying to achieve. Fortunately, we only had to do this for a year as we became quite busy and needed to employ staff and could at that stage justify an increase in overheads.
So our biggest piece of advice if you are going to start working from home is, set the ground rules first.