Moms Network

Now, more and more people are working from home. As a mom, it is not always easy to work within the confines of your house, especially if your kids have decided that they are going to constantly distract you when you are trying to meet deadlines. Therefore, creating a home office within which you can focus and get away from the chaos of the rest of your home is important. Here are some top tips that can help you to create a great home office without spending too much money.

Look for Office Furniture Discounts

The one element of a room that will turn it into a home office is the type of furniture that you have placed within it. Investing in office furniture is important if you are going to create an effective working space. This furniture should always be high quality to prevent you from sustaining back problems and other issues that are associated with a sedentary lifestyle. To get high-quality office furniture without going over-budget on your home office renovations, you should look for coupons like a National Business Furniture promo code that can help you to get money off the furniture that you need.

Find a Nook in Your Home

However, you do not have to completely take over an entire room to create an effective working space at home. When you have a large family or a small home, you might not have the spare rooms that you need to be able to do this. Then, you should consider simply staking out a nook or cranny within your home, which you can work at. For instance, this could be a small space within your hallway or an awkward corner of your living room that you have not worked out what to do with yet.

Focus on Essentials

Rather than filling your home office with inspiring artworks and innovative storage solutions, you should instead focus on the essentials. This is especially the case if you will only be working from home temporarily. All you need to create a home office that you can work within is a desk, a comfortable chair, and a strong Wi-Fi connection, as well as the necessary gadgets, such as a reliable business laptop. After these, any other additions to your space can be brought in at a later date.

Use What You Own

When you are designing your perfect home office on the cheap, though, you should try to use what you own. For instance, you might have a writing desk or a comfortable chair in another part of the house that can be repurposed for use during your working day.

Create DIY Shelving

When you are creating your home office, you will likely have a large array of files, documents, and books that you need to store somewhere. Then, rather than looking around for bulky filing cabinets or storage units, you should consider opting to create DIY shelving. Shelving is one of the easiest home furniture pieces that you can make yourself, and all you need to do this is strong wood, a shelving bracket, and a few screws.

Working from home brings lots of positives to life, but also a fair number of challenges too, particularly for moms.

Creating a calm working space to make tasks as simple as they can be and which limit distractions for optimum efficiency, will help to minimize some of those challenges.

Read on for seven great tips for creating a great work-from-home office space.

Dedicated space

Whether you have the space at home to dedicate a whole room to your office or if you can only spare a small corner of a room to transform into a workstation, it is important you have a place you can go to knowing this is your place for work.

This will help you to mentally separate your mum duties from your work duties when it is time to clock in.

Calm surroundings

There are lots of ways to make your workspace a calmer place to be. Avoiding a buildup of paperwork and other clutter is essential. You can also add scents to the air, some low-level calming music to block out exterior noises and even have a jar of CBD gummy bears to hand from a CBD online shop which may also add to the feelings of tranquility.

Reduce distractions

It can be really difficult to maintain concentration when all the reminders of household chores yet to be done are hanging around, but it is essential to separate work life from mom life.

To reduce distractions, make sure toys and other motherhood reminders are all hidden out of sight, even if you have not yet had the chance to tidy, just make sure there is nothing in your eyeline while in your office space.

Ergonomic furniture

So many home workers subject themselves to sitting at the dining room table, or worse hunched over a coffee table, to carry out work. This is bad news for your back and will also distract you from your work.

Investing in some made-for-purpose office furniture such as an ergonomic desk and chair will offer you a comfortable place to get on with the to-do list without aches and pains affecting productivity.

Good design

Style your office to suit your tastes and you will find it more of a pleasure to escape to when you have got to go to work.

A big positive of home working is you can make your working space attractive to you, so spending a little time on its design is well worth the effort, ensuring you can settle down for the day in a space that makes you smile.

Efficient storage

Being unable to put your hand to what you need can be incredibly time-sapping. To avoid wasting precious minutes searching for what you need every time you need it, invest in appropriate storage.

Good connection

There are not many situations more frustrating than having to wait for a slow internet connection, and remote working generally requires at least some level of connectivity, so getting the fastest broadband you can is a good choice.

Whether you need to file share, visit websites, take part in video conferences or any other tasks requiring connecting to the web, get your internet up to speed.

Managing business finances is challenging for any business owner but when you have a stay-at-home business, the challenge gets amplified. This is because you are responsible for handling all your business’ finances because you may not have any employees yet. Even when you have the skills to create the products and services you sell, managing your finances can still feel like a chore, leading to financial habits that can lead to business failure. To help you out, here are a few tips to help you manage your business’ finances better.

Woman at Laptop

Pay Yourself

If you are  running a small business from your home, it is easy to set aside some money to pay yourself. A lot of people end up putting all the money back into the business and forget that they have financial responsibilities outside the business.

Once you start paying yourself, it gets easier to extend that type of thinking to employees and to see the need for them because you know you can work the business’ finances to find the money needed to hire extra help.

Have a Billing Strategy

Almost every business has a client who is always late on their payments. If you have such a client, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy cash flow. This is why it is so important to have a billing strategy in place.

Some strategies include considering discounts for clients who pay early and letting all customers know that you need them to pay within a certain number of days, usually 30 days after an invoice has been sent. If not, it is always better to find alternative clients than to deal with the headache and cash flow issues caused by one client.

Do Not Be Afraid of Loans

There is a false notion that if you run a stay-at-home business, you might not be eligible for a loan. While loans can be scary, there is no reason why you cannot apply and get one while you work from home. Lenders will want to see your numbers and a demonstration of your ability to repay the loan. Businesses like Advance Business Capital are helping people find the right types of loans for their businesses, regardless of the types of businesses they run. If you are ready to give your business the financial reserves it needs to be successful, you can talk to them to get a quote for the right type of loan.

Keep an Eye on Your Books

Even when you have someone taking care of your books, it is important to set some time aside every week or month to go through the books. Doing this ensures you are intimately familiar with your business’ finances. Also, it can help you notice if anything nefarious is going on.

Running a stay-at-home business can be hard, especially if you do not have someone helping you with your finances. However, it is possible to learn everything you need to so that you can know what is happening in your business as well as to find the extra cash you need if you ever need it to grow your business.