Melissa Rich-Landis Author – Your Virtual Home Office Can Be a Reality!

As school lets out for the Christmas break, many work-at-home parents are struggling with how to keep their kids pre-occupied while they work from the home office.    Now that my daughter is older (age 13), she requires very little of my time and does not affect my home office operations much.   However, when she was younger (in pre-school or early elementary school), keeping her busy while I was working was quite a task. 

Here are few quick tips for occupying young children during that holiday vacation:

• Remember that this is their holiday – their break from routine.    Scheduling several interactive and engaging activities during the holiday break will provide much needed “together time” and lifelong memories.
• Depending on your situation, your work is still a priority.   You still need to accomplish specific tasks during their break. 

Work with your family and children to create a balance between vacation and work.   Chapter 14 offers an array of tips for working with families.

Holidays are a great time to pick up extra hours doing customer service type jobs while working from your virtual home office. Companies such as 1-800 Flowers and other customer service type companies put on extra workers to help with the call volume during this time of year. If you have the time available and could use extra money, check out the virtual call centers for extra income during the holiday season.

As we approach the holiday season, I have developed a list of projects to accomplish during the holiday lull.   The holidays can be a great time for catching up on long term projects.    My home office may be filled with holiday cheer, but I know that underneath it all, I must remain focused and driven.

My home office is professional in so many ways, but it still has the feeling of home.    It is not uncommon for all three household pets (2 dogs and a cat) to be napping in my virtual office in the warm sunshine coming through the window.   But great care has been taken to make certain that the pets are not interfering with my office operations.   For example, my family and I have selected quiet dog breeds – rather than yappy noisy dogs that bark at every whim.    The pets are allowed in my office when it is convenient for me; but otherwise, they have a proper place outside of the office.

Before you establish your home office, you may want to evaluate options for your pets and determine how a virtual office may affect them.

My home office makes working so accessible, comfortable, and convenient.  I absolutely love this working arrangement.  I have loved this arrangement from day one, but I also know that I was well prepared for my new working environment. 

Others have struggled with their home offices – rather than embracing that virtual working agreement.  If you are subject to the home office blues, it indicates that you have not prepared yourself, your family, and your workplace adequately.    To correct that problem, you may want to review that arrangement and make appropriate changes.  Hopefully, my book will be helpful to you in formulating your plan.

I subscribe to several work-at-home news feeds and I am always interested in reading the perspectives from my work at home colleagues.  However, in the last week or so, I have noticed several articles where the author viewed their home office in a negative light.  It appeared that the authors were not well prepared in developing their home office environment; and thus, were bombarded with a continuous flow of family interruptions.   

If you need help in planning your home office or working with your family to minimize distractions, you might want to review chapter 14 of the book.

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Working from home is wonderful! I cannot say enough about much I have enjoyed my 20 year career of working from home. I do have to say at times it has really been a challenge with those that are closest to me – my family. Children and husbands have a tendency to interrupt during working hours. I have found it best to set up two offices in my home. One is in the mainstream area of the house and the other has a private location for times that I need complete privacy.

I work during the day in the main area for times that don’t need complete quiet this allows me to tend to my two-year-old as she needs. My working rules are when I am in my private office; I am not to be bothered. I make arrangements with other family member to handle the small dramas that come about during that time.

It is so easy to overextend yourself when working from home. You have your business or job working from your home office and then you are asked to volunteer for the school. You think to yourself “That is easy enough, I can do that……it will only take a few hours on Tuesday”. Then you get another call that requests more of your time since you were able to do the first job.

People that do not work from home don’t have the same understanding of the work from home job role. They have a tendency to think you are sitting at home eating bon bons and watching soap operas. Set up working guidelines to keep yourself from over extending your time and alleviating stressful situations.

When I began working from home, my young daughter was only two years old.  It was difficult to manage her while focusing on business tasks.  Through strong determination and strategic plan, I was able to keep her engaged while I was working.   However, that plan had to be flexible to meet her quickly changing moods.  

Chapter 14 focuses on managing children and a virtual home office.   The Life Lessons Article also relays my personal experience with managing a toddler and a home based business simultaneously.