The Best 17 Tips To Be A Successful Work At Home Mum

(Last Updated On: August 7, 2018)

Motherhood alone is a tough job and balancing that with a career can be even more difficult. Today, many mums are looking for jobs that will allow them to stay at home and still make a good income. Luckily, there are many options for online or work-at-home jobs today. You are your own boss and get to enjoy the much craved flexibility. Obviously, it’s not all perfect and as easy as it sounds. Add the kids into the mix, household duties and more, life can get pretty crazy and overwhelming! With that in mind, I have compiled 17 best tips and lessons to be a successful stay at home mompreneur. In this post, you’ll learn tips to work more effectively.

best-successful-work-at-home-mompreneur-tips

1. Goals. Goals are important in any aspect of life but are especially important when working from home. When I first started out, I sat down and wrote down a list of general goals that I had for myself. Having goals help you to visualize and organize your thoughts and your focus. Experts recommend that you make goals for each week, each month, and each year (short term and long term goals). Also, make your goals challenging but attainable. Read this article on effective goal setting tips.

2. Be Creative. You may have heard the phrase, “There are no such things as dumb questions”. Well, you should have the same attitude when it comes to this. No idea is a dumb idea. Sit down, write out any and every idea you have when it comes to jobs or things you can do from home. Yes, some of them won’t be worth much in the end, but brainstorming is always a good tool to use and you never know what you will come up with. It’s good to keep a catalog of ideas to work on in the future.

3. Accountability. Once you figure out the goals you have and have a good set of ideas to work with, come up with a business plan detailing your long term goals, how you will measure your success, your strategies for achieving your goals (that’s a whole other post). Once you have that business plan, tell someone that you know will help keep you accountable to that plan. This should be someone that you trust, can share your ideas with and that you know will follow up with you. Very often, accountability can be the make or break for people who need that extra push and to help spur you on when you feel like giving up. That is also why getting a blog buddy or mentor can be extremely valuable.

4. Organization. Make sure you stay organized and know what needs to be worked on. At the beginning of each week, make a list of the things that need to be completed and then prioritize them. Once you complete something, mark it off. I always get a sense of accomplishment when I mark off an item! Learn time management tips and how to be more organized to streamline your processes and make your working day flow smoother.

5. Understanding That It’s Not Easy. Having your own business is not an easy thing. It takes a lot of hard work, especially at the beginning. Then add on being a mum and having a family, it is not going to be an easy feat but it will definitely be worth it! Hang in there and manage your expectations, be honest with what you can handle and cut yourself some slack so you won’t give up easily.

6. “Me” Time. Make sure that you take a break throughout the day. Take a few minutes and step back from work, family, and motherly duties to breathe and reset your mind. This will make sure that you stay balanced, refreshed and sometimes, can really help to start you out on a brand new spurt of focus and energy.

7. Learn and Practise the Skill of Confidence. Did you know that there are ways/habits/actions you can undertake to give yourself a boost in confidence? “Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill.” Having a good dose of confidence helps you to tackle your challenges, reach out bravely for your goals. Further reading: 5 Powerful Ways To Boost Your Confidence

8. Understand The Power Of Positivity. You are going to have good and bad days. There will be days where you are making amazing progress and it seems like people are loving your ideas and then there will be days where you feel that you aren’t doing anything right and that you’ve made a giant mistake. Remaining positive daily will help you, tremendously. On the bad days, just remember why you decided to work from home! Take some time to understand the power of positivity and how a positive attitude can help you in your career.

9. Set Healthy and Reasonable Boundaries. Try to find a good balance for all the aspects of your life. Try to make set times for your work and family and stick to them (as much as possible). This will help to keep you balanced especially since working from home can often mean it’s difficult to set clear boundaries. Especially for moms, we tend to feel guilty if we spend a little too much time on work, yet we simultaneously struggle with feeling the need to work on our business. Setting fixed times to shut off and dedicate to certain activities (whether it’s a half hour block to do some work or a half hour block to shut off all media and spend time reading with the kids) can help you feel balanced and happy.

10. Network. Try to get other people involved. Use the connections that you have and maybe even try to get someone to partner with you in your business. Don’t try to do it all alone! Many work from home moms struggle with loneliness and isolation. Despite the nature of your work, you can still network through facebook groups or other online communities.

11. Create Your Own Office Space. Even if you can’t set aside an entire room to use as your home office, designate an area in your home where you go to work every day. Once you designate that place, stick to it and treat is as a normal office. I personally don’t have an extra room in my house but I have designated an area as my workspace. It helps to keep me focused and concentrated on my work when I sit there instead of just sitting on the couch or at the kitchen table. Read more: Useful Tips and Suggestions To Create Your Home Office

12. Divvy Up Tasks. Don’t try to do everything at once and certainly don’t try to do it all alone. If you have other people working with you, make sure you give them things to do. Many mompreneurs fall into the trap of feeling like they can’t trust someone else with their own business and no one can do the job better than themselves. However, there is always certain repetitive tasks that can be outsourced.

13. Flexibility. A big part of working at home is being flexible. You may set aside a couple hours in the morning to do work but something may come up that takes priority, something may take longer than expected or something may not work at all! Although I mentioned setting boundaries above, still try to be flexible with your work and your time. Sometimes, the only work you might be able to fit in all day is a tiny 20 minute kid naptime and that is ok!

14. Don’t be afraid to say no. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself, whether with work or things in personal life. In every aspect of life, you have to have boundaries and no matter how difficult it may be, you have to know when to say no and actually be able to say it. Read: 10 Guilt Free Strategies For Saying No

15. Outsourcing. There are many people out there that are looking to do random work for other people. Honestly, whatever you need done, whether it’s little detail stuff, scheduling, writing, etc., you can find someone to help you out. You may not be able to do this until you get a little further into this process but once you can, I would definitely recommend outsourcing for the little things. It will save you time and allow you to work on more important things.

16. Prioritize Motherhood. There are going to be times where you have to stop what you are doing and be with your kids. You may have an odd schedule some days because you have to take your kids to an appointment or a game. There are always going to be things that pop up. Don’t ever feel like you have to apologise for being a mother. Being a mother and owning your own business is a lot to handle. At the end of the day, the reason why most of us have strived so hard to be able to work from home is our kids. It’s easy to forget that through the process.

17. Go mobile. I definitely suggest learning how to make your work mobile. Use a laptop if possible so you can work wherever if you have to move around to different rooms throughout the day. Go digital and download relevant apps on your smart phone so you can sneak in a quick couple of minutes replying emails or reading/researching on your phone. There are so many apps these days for most programs/sites. You can even take a quick few minutes to schedule pins for pinterest on your phone. Never underestimate how much these couple of minutes can add up for a busy work from home mom.

So, to all the current and aspiring stay-at-home mompreneurs, I hope these tips are helpful for you. What we do can be so challenging at times but in the end, being more available and able to spend more time with your kids is worth it. If you found this post useful, share it with likeminded moms!

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23 Comments

  • These are really wonderful tips! I especially loved #2 Be Creative. I think sometimes we start to think we’re not creative, when that is far from the truth, we all are, and the more we use it the more we have it. 🙂
    I could totally get more organized.
    I’d love for you to share your post with us over at #MMBH 🙂
    XO

  • I think that organization and positivity are KEY! You always run smoother with being organized. Otherwise you waste a lot of time and energy just trying to find things! And being positive is good for your soul!
    Karen | GlamKaren.com

  • These are such great tips. I think a LOT of people don’t understand quite how hard it is to be a work at home mom – especially when you have very young children. I definitely need to start outsourcing.

  • My BFF works from home, and even though she doesn’t have kids – some of these tips would still be a great help. It would be hard to separate work duties from home duties for me if I worked at home.

  • honestly for me, boundaries are so hard to make (and keep). These are really great tips. I thought that being a WAHM would be so easy, but nope, it’s rough!

  • Learn and practise the skill of confidence is something I need to focus on. These tips are great for just everybody who work at home. Will keep this post, as I plan to work at home.

  • Learning to be creative as a mother is definitely important. Try not to stick to routines too much as you never know what each day will bring!

  • I’m not a stay at home mum myself, but I think these tips are even great for people running a blog. Me time is a definite if you want a good balance!

  • Boundaries are something I am trying to work on. It seems like I am always juggling between homeschooling/blogging/and being a mama. I am also thinking about getting an assistant, that would be helpful, but not in my budget right now 🙂

  • These are some great tips!!! Organization is key for me. If I have everything set up and ready to go, the day usually goes pretty smoothly

  • These are great tips. Even though I have understood them to be important, I still have a lot of trouble mastering and following a couple of them. I hardly ever get in the “me” time. I have an extremely hard time saying no and rarely do. Last, I have a hard time outsourcing. It almost seems like it makes it harder.

  • Me time has got to be the most important thing to keep me sane. My kids drive me batty all day long that I need at least 10-15 minutes to unwind every now and again where I just shut myself in the bathroom or bedroom 😛

  • Great tips for not only work from home moms but anyone (for the most part). I have trouble with the me time. I will definitely come back to reference these tips!

  • “No,” is a great word for all women to learn. I’ve been incorporating it into my work from home habits and it really helps. I still feel guilty something saying no, but then I remember I have to put myself first.

  • Great tips! I always have to be very conscious to not allow family/personal/house stuff creep into my biz time…It can be hard sometimes…I tend to get more done when I go to a coffee shop or local park with wifi!

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