When working at home, one of the hard things to do is to make it clear to others that you are actually working. They seem to think that since you are at home, you can come and go as you please or worse yet, as THEY please. This can be extremely frustrating while you are attempting to keep on task and get work done.

I know many work at home moms and dads who let themselves get taken advantage of by people wanting them to drop what they are doing and come to the need of their problem or come join them in what they want to do that day just on a whim. Whether it is someone wanting to chat endlessly on the phone, needing someone to watch their kids, drive them to a destination or simply just wanting the home business owner to run out to go shopping or have lunch. This is when a work at home mom or dad needs to put their foot down, if they are serious about trying to take care of their business.

Don't get me wrong, working at home DOES give you flexibility, and that is one of the perks. But you also need to have the discipline to be able to follow through and commit to your own goals and have the commitment to your business. Some people have a really hard time being able to stay focused and keeping on top of the deadlines they have created for themselves. And when friends or family call on them during their specific work time they have set in place for themselves, it is hard for them to say no. But if you want to truly succeed in running a home based business, you need to build a backbone, stand up for yourself and your business, and put your own work guidelines into full action.

If you are a work at home mom or dad who is serious about working at home and needing that income flow, you need to speak up and let people know, in a gentle but firm way, that you do work during the day and that your business is important to you. You need to let the people in your life know that you need them to understand that you are "at your job" during certain hours of the day and that while you'd love to be able to drop and run, sometimes you just can't. There have been many times that I have had to do this with people, and over a period of time, they have "gotten" it. If someone calls and wants to take 3 hours to go shopping that day, most likely I can't. But that doesn't mean I can't the following week. Being able to plan ahead with people, and getting them to understand that you NEED to plan ahead, causes less stress and misunderstandings.

Just think of it, if you were working in a regular job, would these same people call you there and expect you can just leave or come to their aid anytime you wanted to? No, they wouldn't think that, and home based business owners sometimes need to retrain their own thought process along with gently retraining those in their lives and letting them know that they have a schedule that they need to stick to.



Cyndi Webb is the Founder and President of Moms Network - an organization dedicated to the promotion and success of Moms in business. Since 1997 she has promoted and worked with thousands of work at home moms in coaching and guiding them in how to help grow their businesses. Over the years Moms Network has evolved to include more than 15 websites offering free resources to moms from all walks of life, the Connecting @ Home print magazine and the annual Celebrating Moms Expo which attracts thousands of moms in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Cyndi makes her home in Minnesota with her husband and two children.

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