Corona virus is affecting all of us,
and if you're a handmade business owner and you're looking for help for how to
manage your time better at home and other work from home tips, stay tuned.
The covert 19 outbreak and lockdown is unprecedented,
and I know there are a lot of you working from home who maybe haven't before at
this capacity.
I'm going to share with you some strategies that will help you become more
productive.
I'm going to share with you some strategies that will help you become more. Hi,
I'm Mei Pak and I help makers, artists,
and designers create a consistent income selling their handmade products online.
I've been running my own handmade jewelry business for over a decade and I want
to share everything I know with you so we can all get through this and be
successful together. So I've always worked from home.
The commute is amazing,
but the problem is that your work is always just right over there.
Like I can't count the number of nights I've stayed up later than I should have
because I was doing just one more thing. I'm sure you can relate to that, right?
It's hard to get that work. Life balance,
especially when work in life are in the same place.
I know more of you are working from home than ever before and working from home
is harder than it's ever been.
Maybe you have a spouse who is also working from home and getting in your space
or your extra bedroom that used to be your studio now belongs
to a kid unexpectedly back from college. Right?
Or maybe you're trying to focus on work,
but it's hard when you've got a pile of dirty dishes in the sink waiting to be
put away in the dishwasher.
Or maybe just not having your regular routine is making it hard for you to focus
at your desk because now you gotta figure out a new routine. I hear you.
I've definitely been through a lot of those moments myself and I want to share
some of my favorite work from home tips with you.
The first thing is definitely set a schedule.
Tell yourself that after a certain time you're not allowed to do work things
anymore. It will take practice. But after a while,
you will train your body to know that certain hours are only for relaxing or
doing home stuff. Try to create a routine. Now,
this is slightly different than a schedule, but it's kind of related.
A routine is all the things you do surrounding a certain event,
so maybe to help you settle into work in the morning,
you make yourself a cup of tea, put on some light music and then start work.
This can help you get in the mood to work even if you didn't necessarily start
the day feeling motivated to do anything.
A routine helps you get into the habit of doing things like,
maybe you've heard this before,
but if you're having trouble exercising in the morning,
then experts have recommended that you put your workout shoes by your bed so you
can put it on right away. When you wake up.
That small action will help you kickstart the rest of the sequences of actions
in that routine and now you're much more likely to actually work out.
I want to share. On the other hand,
a schedule helps keep you organized and on track to working on different
projects and different parts of your business. For example,
my daily work schedule usually looks like this.
When I'm ready to work in the morning,
the first thing I usually do is talk to my team, answer any questions they have.
For me.
Usually it's questions about a specific customer email or it's just general
discussion about a project we're working on.
The next block in my schedule is to work on anything on my to do list.
This usually takes up most of my time before and after lunch.
I usually do things like review work for one off projects that my team has done
for me or making business decisions that sometimes require me to do a bit of
research or like talking to people.
And then finally before I check out for the day,
I check emails to focus on work. If I didn't have a schedule,
I would just be pulled in any direction.
I would have no control and it doesn't help me be proactive.
If you don't have a schedule,
don't be surprised if you feel like you're always putting out fires and never
getting ahead in your business.
I used to be like that and it feels like a hamster wheel.
It's important to carve out time deliberately for parts of your business because
that's how things get done. So a schedule helps keep you organized,
but more than that, it can be strategic also for your mental health.
Like when I read emails, sometimes I get bad news,
like a customer issue and to me it's not productive to start my entire day
with that tone because then I'm going to carry that weight with me throughout
the day and it's going to make me have a hard time focusing on other work.
You know what a schedule also does?
It tells other people in your household when you're working and they shouldn't
bother you. You're setting boundaries, which brings me to my next tip.
Number two, give yourself the gift of undisturbed work time.
This is so you can clear your head and really pump it out.
You're much more efficient and productive when you have momentum and laser focus
to do the work. You know every time you shift gears between things,
you lose a little bit of that momentum and efficiency.
So here are some ideas for what you can do.
Turn off notifications on your phone either all the time or just during certain
work hours.
It's hard to work with your phone buzzing at you and lighting up all the time,
right? Because every time it does that,
your attention is pulled away from the task at hand for a split
second.
And it does take a bit of effort or mental strength to get back on track
if you're lucky to have a separate space in your house that you can work in,
close the door when you're working so other people don't disturb you.
And you might also want to close the door when you're not in there.
So you aren't tempted to pop in and do more work, work life balance. Right?
But the fact is, no one likes being interrupted,
but you're going to keep getting interrupted if you don't communicate with your
family and yourself that you have a schedule.
You can create an I'm working signal, like assign.
You can turn on to show other people you're working or I've even read about
someone who wears a silly hat to tell her family that she can't be disturbed
when she's wearing that hat. It's different,
but it just might work for you because now you've got to figure out number
three, at the end of the day when it's time to stop working,
I recommend that you should put away your work,
even if it's just the act of shutting the door so you can't see that work.
If you don't have a dedicated space,
do what you can to pack up at the end of your Workday when things are out of
sight, it's out of mind. That way you're not working.
Time can truly be about relaxing and connecting with your family.
I remember when my husband was still working at a regular office job,
while it had its own disadvantages, like work, drama and politics.
I used to tell him that I envied that he could just leave work at work.
When he came home,
he didn't have to spare a single thought to his work and he can just relax and
watch TV and browse the internet and he would still get paid a salary.
But as business owners,
you're always thinking about work and it's especially hard to consciously
force yourself to stop thinking about it when you know the more work you do,
the more money you could potentially make with your business.
Your income is tied to the work you do,
at least in the earlier stages of your business.
So I understand the challenge and how work life balance is especially hard for
business owners,
but I really do recommend you make it a priority because otherwise you are on
that fast lane to burnout and that's a scary place to be in. Number four,
spend money to make money.
I know money might be tight right now for some of you,
but I do think now is the time to splurge on a little bit of technology that
might make your life easier. So hear me out.
The logic is that if your life is easier, you're more productive,
you get more done and you're moving your business forward and potentially
setting yourself up to make more sales. So for example,
you can get yourself a subscription to software that can help you
bulk schedule your social media posts.
You're saving time or maybe you want to invest in a new backdrop and
a lighting kit for photographing your products.
Since you're spending so much more time indoors,
you're going to level up your product photos,
which helps increase your conversion rates on your site, which means more sales,
whatever it is,
if there's something that would help you make the best use of this time,
it's worth considering. For sure.
I hope these tips are useful for those of you newly working from home,
I know it might not be the easiest solution,
but I also know you can do it and efficiencies here will really help your
business be successful. If you enjoyed this, stay on to watch this next video.
If you have any questions, leave me a comment below.
I would actually love to hear if you have any tips of your own to share in the
comments and don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe.