My 9 Favorite Perks of Working from Home

Yesterday, I read an article about how to work more productively, stay focused and avoid distractions of working from home. A few of the tips were helpful, such as “get an accountability partner” and “leave the house”.  This and other articles talk about disadvantages of working from home and I realized I’d never written an article on the benefits of working from “home”. So

9 Reasons I Love Working from Home

• My home office is my laptop so “home” is wherever I want to be. If my home office starts to feel confining, I get in my van, set up my portable desk and work by the beach.
• I’m able to eat nutritious lunches and honor my grazing with frequent little fresh snacks. Sometimes I have a picnic lunch.
• My (four-legged) co-workers are always enthusiastic listeners and encourage my big dreams and great ideas.
• I can schedule my break times for low tide.
• I have total control of the environment: temperature, music, lighting
• I can choose to run errands while everyone else is at work and work while they are fighting crowds and traffic. Same goes for the gym, bank, post office, movie theaters and restaurants. I can do those things while the crowd is at work and work at home while the crowd is at the gym, bank, post office and market.
• If my family or friends need me, I can be there for them and work from a hospital waiting room, airport or mountain top.
• My socks don’t have to match. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have to wear socks.
• I don’t have to take off work to schedule repairs and deliveries. I can throw in a load of laundry or start a pot of soup in the middle of the day. When others are spending their off-time doing household chores, I’m playing.

Do these things pull me away from my work? Not at all. When people complain about the distractions of working at home, I think they must not love what they do because when you’re in your element, you are 100% present.
What are some of the advantages you find in working from home? If you haven’t started your small business yet, what benefits of working from home are you looking forward to?

Love to Sew but Hate to Sell? We need eachother.

Recently, inspiration for a product has been so noisy, so constant, it wakes me from a sound sleep. The timing couldn’t be worse since I have a number of plates spinning and deadlines looming but when an idea wants attention so desperately that it keeps jumping around in front of your face,  it can no longer be ignored. So, a few nights ago, I woke up at 3AM and doodled down the design, made notes on sourcing materials and marketing the product.
Because any business I create must meet certain criteria that support my core values, I’ve been considering how this project will impact lives. My design is handcrafted and labor intensive so it makes sense to outsource the production.  My first thought was to teach women in a developing country to make the product, enabling them to earn a fair wage and support their families. Then I thought about the unemployment rates in our own country and all the women who’d benefit by the opportunity to work from home.
I thought of Detroit and all the families whose incomes were dependent on the auto industry. Having spent years in home furnishings, I know what outsourcing overseas has done to the Carolinas and the affect it’s had on entire communities.  So, wouldn’t it make sense to use this idea to create livelihood for families in our own country? I’m going to start here but I need your help. Who do you know who loves to sew and would love to work from home on their own schedule? Let’s see how many women we can help create their own livelihood. Is this you or someone you know? Let’s do this together. I’d love to hear from you.