Let's Try This Again

Mind set, You really have to be in the right mind set to work from home. I'm not sure where I was before but I wasn't there. I think I had to get over some feelings that were seriously getting in my way.

"What am I thinking??? I can't do this!" If you are mentally sabotaging yourself you will not be able to get anywhere. You need to have faith in yourself. Questioning is good but use it as a means of finding solutions, not beating down your idea. For a while every time I'd sit down to work on the program I'd think "What if I do it wrong? What if people think it is dumb? What if?" and then I'd barely get anything done. At some point it dawned on me that I had incredible confidence in myself when I was working for someone else. I knew I was doing a very good job. I'm doing similar work for myself. A little fear of the unknown shouldn't unnerve me. It should excite me. So now I have my confidence back. I know I can do this!

"I can do everything myself." Um... Yeah. I can keep a perfectly clean house. Care for a 2 year old 24x7. Cook yummy home cooked meals daily. Spend quality time with friends and family. Start a business. Oh yeah, and have a nervous breakdown if I even actually tried to make time for all that in one week. :) It's time to make trade offs. Either I pick them or they will be picked for me. As I've seen over the past months usually at the expense of getting anything done for the business. My first trade off was to arrange for a little free time. This week I started my daughter in a daycare/preschool program for 2 hours on Tuesday and Thursday. She's reached the age where she gets wildly excited to be around kids so I thought this would meet a need of hers and of mine. Today was the second day. She actually struggled to get out of my arms the moment we were in the door. She clung to me when I said I was leaving but was distracted away in about 5 seconds and was ignoring me when I walked out the door. I think this is harder on me then her! Four hours a week doesn't seem like much but I already see my stress level plummeting. Next on my list I'm finding a house cleaner!

"Schedule, who needs a schedule?" I do! I am notorious for being disorganized and winging it. Being able to wing it is a great skill but it doesn't help balance the 20 hours of stuff that needs to be fit in 10 hours of time. I need priorities and a plan for attacking the day so I can get the critical stuff done and still enjoy a walk to the playground with my 2 year old. I've updated my online calendar with events. I'm starting to rebuild my flylady (www.flylady.com) routines for the day and the week. Next I need to fit in some time for organizing work supplies and children's toys so Claire and I can both find stuff. Finally I'm going to start tracking my work hours so I see how much time I'm actually giving to business activities each week.

Well here we go again. Let's see if I can get serious this time!