There's an ugly little myth homebased business owners are
constantly called upon to shatter: that you're not really
working. You're not really under constant deadlines, so you
have the freedom to take off at any moment to share coffee with a
neighbor, a long-distance chit-chat with Aunt Rita or an Oprah
moment with your spouse.
While you thought you escaped the demons of watercooler gossip
and cubicle chatter when you went homebased, unwelcome
interruptions are not a thing of the past. But instead of annoying
coworkers you could easily dismiss, now the interruptions are
courtesy of people you actually like. How do you deal with
well-meaning friends and family without sounding like a shrew?
Lynn Proctor Windle found it took time, patience and flexibility
to help her family understand all interruptions aren't welcome.
Her husband, a work-at-home realtor, didn't abide by a strict
schedule, but by the hours his clients were available. Coming from
a corporate background, Windle "lives and dies by schedules
and lists." So how could she explain her tight deadlines when
he popped in for a chat or to invite her on errands?
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"I had to learn a more patient approach to working in our
home," says Windle, 37, who started her marketing
communications consulting business in Rockwall, Texas, in 1998.
"if the project is routine or without an immediate deadline, I
stop and answer his questions and even ask for his input on some
things. If I'm on a tight deadline, I explain the project to
him before I start." She also made the lucky discovery that
he's willing to help her out clerically in exchange for her
company.
"It's important that people treat their home offices
with the [same] seriousness that they would [treat] a business if
they had to commute to it," says Julian Lange, a professor of
entrepreneurship at Babson College and founder of Chatham
Associates, a management consulting business, both in Wellesley,
Massachusetts. "As best you can, keep regular hours. They may
not be traditional hours, but you should know when you're
working and when you're off. You can tell people you're on
deadline or simply [say] you don't accept calls or visits
during those hours."
While Windle's convinced her husband of her tight schedule,
her teenagers are another matter. Her interruption-free solution is
to work when they're not home: up at 7 a.m. to check e-mail and
organize her day, break at 8:15 to take her teens to school and run
errands, and back to work at 9:30 until her kids get home at 4 p.m.
"Your life can be a lot more flexible if you let it
[be]," says Windle. "I actually get a lot more done now
because I don't have meetings and visitors popping into my
cube."
Thanks, But No Thanks
Though most telemarketers tend to call during dinner time, some
call right when we're getting down to business. Here's how
to deal:
- Lynn Proctor Windle's lifesaving trick is anonymous call
rejection, provided by her local phone company. "It's a
godsend in screening out annoying calls. I don't really worry
about missing clients because legitimate businesses don't block
their names and numbers [from caller id]--usually only
telemarketers do."
- Entrepreneurship Professor Julian Lange suggests that when you
do get the dreaded "Do you
have a moment?" call, end it quickly and painlessly. "My
feeling is you're doing them and yourself a service if you
basically cut in right at the beginning of their speech and say
'Thank you, but I'm not interested.' Usually they will
then say thank you and hang up. If they don't, then you have to
because it's your time."
Contact Sources
Chatham Associates, P.O. Box 812155, Wellesley, MA
02482-0014
Lynn Proctor Windle, (972) 771-8868, lwindle@rockwall.net