Top Tips for Small Business Owners who WFH on Limited Days

Whether you've been doing it for a while or it's brand new to you, working from home can be a challenge! 

For me, my work from home journey started when I wanted to give more time to my small greetings card business. We could only afford for me to drop one day from my job as a teaching assistant in a primary school, so I chose a Friday, thinking that I could also take advantage of the weekend if needed. 

Unfortunately, Friday is also the perfect day to get a lot of my other household chores done - I mean who's not going to do the washing on a Friday, when the weather looks fantastic and the forecast for the weekend is rain, rain, rain. So, before you know it, it's 4pm, the bathroom's clean, you've done 2 loads of washing, you've hoovered your son's bedroom, got food ready for the evening meal, cleaned the kitchen and basically not spent a lot of time on furthering the business! Arghhhh... 

Over the past year, I've developed some top tips to ensure that I maximize this time, get the best of both worlds and finally feel like the business is benefiting. 

Top tip #1 

Have a list! Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm a stickler for lists (it comes with being a Virgo!). I have one for every occasion. I have 12 for Christmas! I have two lists that I use for my work from home days. List 1 is the jobs that I would like to get done that Friday for the business. List 2 is the jobs that I would like to get done for the home over the next three days. I use the Notes app on my i-phone with checkable bullet points so that I can mark off jobs as completed.

Top tip #2 

Most of my business work tends to be admin on a Friday and this involves spending a lot of time in the office, at the computer, sitting and concentrating. It's so important to have a good computer chair for posture and comfort, but it's also really important to make sure that you get regular breaks from the computer whilst working at home. And this is the perfect opportunity to slip in one of those jobs from list 2. I set a time limit on my phone, which goes off every hour and I try to alternate between the jobs in list 1 and the jobs in list 2. It doesn't always work but it does force me to have regular breaks, it means that I make progress on both lists and it prevents me from becoming bored and going off task. I also set a timer for when the washing machine finishes!

Top tip #3 

When working on jobs for the business, I make sure that I have a variety of activities for that day. No one is going to be able to send emails nonstop for 8 hours without getting bored and needing to get up and wander. When I am planning my business jobs I try to ensure that I vary the things I've got on my list for that day; sending invoices, completing orders, blogging, updating the website, social media posts, ordering new stock and so on. I can then break down the day into hour chunks and feel like I've been more productive than if I had stuck to 1 task only. 

Top tip #4 

Don't be afraid to ask for help directly. When I first started my small business, everything was new to me. It was the steepest learning curve I have ever experienced in my life. I've always been employed rather than self-employed so the idea of being responsible for every part of my business was daunting. Not only that, I had to get to grips with building a website, familiarizing myself with social media (something that is not recommended when you work in a primary school and so something that was entirely new to me), creating business contacts, marketing etc. The Internet was my guru, YouTube videos were my saviors, and networking was a lifeline. I've asked for advice on social media, I've asked for advice on Google, I've asked for advice use online chatbots but the single most effective way of getting help has been speaking to people direct; on the phone or even face to face (and always remember to keep contact details of those people because you'll probably need them again). Speaking to people directly also gives you a form of human contact, which you might not get if you're working on your own from home on a daily basis and it is important for everyone's mental health and well-being. 

Top tip #5 

If you can afford it, then plan to have the heating on. I've tried wearing 7 layers of clothes, fingerless gloves, and even a woolly bobble hat but at the end of the day living in the UK, we need to be comfortable to be able to work. No one can concentrate when their toes are cold! 

Top tip #6 

Stay away from the fridge! Enough said! 

Whether you're a WFH novice, just starting out, or a full time WFH pro, I hope that you find some of my tips useful (or at least amusing) and I welcome any comments or further top tips that work for you!