What are the 3 things nobody tells you about working from home.

Level of distraction. There are lots of distractions working from home. Your work-live and your home-life are getting connected and aren’t that divided anymore. Some distractions can be:

Your house is a mess and the laundry needs to be done. It is hard to work in a cluttered space what is screaming for attention.

So many to-do’s, as well for business as for your kids & your home, that is overwhelmed you to focus on a single task.

Our social media habits take way to much time of our life.

The kids are (partly) home and require attention, that makes you contact switch a lot.

Every time you get distracted it takes you 10-15 minutes to get back to the project you were working on. The deep thinking, like creating content and strategizing is too hard for those times, because you need 100% focus on what you are doing without distractions, so you might postpone those things for when the kids are not home or asleep. 

We as moms can multitask and we pride in this, but when it comes business, you need to learn the art of single task and closing off all distractions

Lack of structure. When you worked for your boss, your job was clear. You knew what you got paid for. There was some kind of structure that helped you accomplish your tasks. Now you are working for yourself, you need to come up with your own structure, goals and tasks. You probably know the things you are good in, but as a small business owner you need to be able to do a wide variety of things, you aren’t familiair with or not specifically gifted at. You need to be the visionair, strategize and set goals, the productmanager but also the person who execute all those task. You are probably not equally gifted in all of these areas. Creating structure for creatives tends to be hard, but coming up with new solutions and business ideas tends to be harder for the people who are great in structure. When you grow, you can start outsourcing part of these tasks, but to start, you probably have to do this all by yourself. You need to develop new skills and a structure for how you are going to run and organize your business in order to succeed. This can be a challenge, so don’t stop learning and developing yourself in this area.

The reality of isolation. Colleagues can become your friends and your social circle. You can bounce ideas off of them and work on the same goals together. When you are working from home it can be pretty lonely. You have to figure it all out alone. If you have an online business, your connections will mostly be with people over a computer screen and it’s not the same as human interaction. Because of the lack of social interaction you could even start feeling depressed and disillusioned. You have to make more of an effort to connect with others.

Know that you are not alone! I learned that a lot of SAHM and entrepreneurs who work from home experience the exact same things. I thought at some point that there was something wrong with me. I even considered going back to my corporate job. I had to go back to the reason WHY I work from home. For me, I want to have FREEDOM to work and spend time with my family whenever I want. Take vacation whenever I want, without asking for permission. I want to do my own business and do the things I love. To create the products I have in my head without having to lobby up the corporate ladder to create some kind of freedom at work.

Even though those 3 things creep up on me once in a while, there is good news! There is a way out of this and it doesn’t have to be a source of constant struggle! The key is: productivity. Scheduling your day and being super productive when you are working makes you happy. Read my blogpost on productivity here to level up your game and become happier in your work.

And besides this, you have to work your social interaction game. Find local (online) business owners in your area. Meet up for brainstorm sessions, meet new people in your Church and invite them over, go to business meetings. You have to be intentional with this because isolation isn’t doing yourself or your business any good. We all need people in our lives, so that we can be super productive at work, present in our family and have friends to do life with.