Working from home is often seen as the modern dream. It’s more realistic than ever, given all the portable technology combining with cloud technology. More and more people are getting interested. Of course, much of this has to do with the fact that people have a bunch of misconceptions about what working from home entails. It’s hard, serious work, and it’s important to understand that.
When you start a business from home, you need to keep the personal and the business sides of things as separate as possible. Here’s some handy advice…
Creating a strict working space at home. One of the best ways of keeping personal and business separate is to create a clear delineation at home. You shouldn’t be taking your business with you into the kitchen or the bedroom. You shouldn’t be working away in front of the TV. You should have a clearly defined working space. This, of course, would be an office. Keep work matters in there. And don’t use that office for any personal or fun reasons. Be your own boss and discipline yourself. No casual social media use. No YouTube videos. No guitar playing. No games. Your office should be for work only. This will help keep you in the right “split” mindset.
Keep private information private. When your home life and your business life mix together in this way, there are a bunch of risks. One of those is seeing the two meld together in a way that sees personal details leak into the business side of things. For some, this is vital to maintaining a likable and more human vibe to their business. And this is certainly something to consider. But you have to be careful. There is such a thing as too much information, especially when it risks your privacy and safety. We’ll look into this a bit more below.
Don’t give out your home address. Really, there’s very little reason why someone would need to know where you live. As long as people understand that you run the business from home, then a city and state should be more than enough. Of course, if you feel that it’s imperative you have a business address, then you should probably use a virtual address. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know your home address.
Be careful with that phone number. So what exactly are you supposed to do about the phone number? You want people to be able to call you, right? Maybe not every Tom, Dick, and Harry. But potential clients, customers, and business associates should be able to contact you. But do you want them to be able to reach your home phone whenever they want? Unlikely. The obvious solution would be to get a second mobile phone. But a mobile number doesn’t look very professional, does it? You can solve that problem with landline mobile numbers.
Create separate social media accounts for work. It’s not advised that you use your personal Facebook and Twitter accounts to conduct any business. In fact, these profiles shouldn’t really make any reference to you owning the business at all. Otherwise, you’re going to get people bothering you on your personal accounts. Create new social media accounts for your business endeavors. You’re going to need them for networking and marketing, anyway…
Photo by Sebastian Mantel
Mia Guerra
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