As another week comes to an end take a look at your life. Are you happy with what you see? If you don't like where your life is headed, make changes. It is easy to become overwhelmed with family and work. Your life may seem like it is passing you by. You are in charge of where your life takes you.

Set aside some time over this upcoming weekend and reexamine where you want to be in your life, both personally and professionally. Make a list of goals you want to accomplish. Then figure out what you need to do to make those goals become reality.

If you are not happy working at your current job, ask yourself what will make you happy.  If your goal is to work from home and be your own boss, make it happen. A job is not going to fall from the sky, but you can work from home if you really want to. You have to have the determination to find a work from home job. If you don't find a job you think is a fit for you, start one of your own.

Life is too short to live unhappy. Today can be the day you stand up and say, I am going to be happy. I am going to be successful. I am going to work from home and be my own boss. You have to change your attitude towards life.

If you want to be happy you have to have a positive attitude and outlook. This is not saying your life is going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There will always be bad days. It is how you handle the bad days that counts.

Figure out what caused you to have a bad day and learn from it. Make changes to ensure the same things do not happen again. Be in control of your life and be happy.

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Working at home when you have small children running around can be challenging. It will be hard to answer the phone with children screaming and the TV blaring in the other room. By following these tips you will be able to juggle working at home and the children at the same time.

Teach your children when the phone rings they become silent. You can make this a game. See who can be the quietest while you are on the phone. The one that wins gets a sticker. At the end of the week the one with the most stickers gets a prize.

Have an area to work in that you can close the door if your children become too noisy. If you are trying to focus on work and your children are running and playing you will not be able to concentrate. Shut the door if you need to. There is no reason to feel guilty. Your kids will not care and you will be more productive. This is of course assuming there is someone else there to keep an eye on your children.

Have lots of activities to keep your children occupied while you are working at home. If they are busy they will be less likely to bother you while you do your work. Age appropriate crafts work great to keep kids entertained.

Hire a sitter to help watch the kids while you are working. A responsible teenager or college student could entertain your children while making sure they don't get into any trouble. This is especially important if you have little children. You will be free to work knowing your children are not going to be into something they shouldn't.

It can be a challenge to work at home with children, but it can be done with a little planning.

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Working from home has many benefits but there are also challenges too. One of these challenges is balancing your work life and your personal life. Some people assume just because you are working from home you should still be able to keep the house immaculately clean, and prepare gourmet meals every night for dinner. This is not the an easy thing to do while trying to keep a home business running successfully.

You have to be able to separate your home life from your job. This is easier to do when you go out to work each day. When you are done you leave and come home. The separation is clear. When working at home you have no place to leave. Your work is always there.

It is very easy to become overwhelmed with all of your responsibilities when you work at home. You still need to do laundry, clean the house, run errands, and prepare meals. You also need to be able to have enough time for your job. This is where you are going to need to learn how to balance your responsibilities.

Start by letting others help you. There is no rule that states you have to be in charge of everything. Let your spouse and children help with some of the chores. If that is not an option consider hiring someone to help you clean house once a week. You might find a teenager or college student in your neighborhood looking to earn some extra cash.

Give up the idea that everything has to be perfect. So what if your child's room is not in tip top shape. The world won't come to and end. There is only 24 hours in a day. If something doesn't get done today you can get to it another day.

Prepare meals ahead of time and freeze them. Spend a day a month making casseroles and soups that can be easily frozen. Then on days you are too busy to cook you can pull one out and throw it in the oven.

Leave work behind when it is quitting time. Plan your day and set a quitting time. Once you are through for the day do not keep working. This can be hard to do with work right there in your home. It is important to do this to keep your work and personal life balanced.

You will fall into a routine the longer you work from home. Once you give up trying to be superman or woman it will be much easier.

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Limit Distractions While Working at Home Part 2

Yesterday we discussed what happens when you let distractions interfere with your working at home. The answer was simple you get no work done. If you are not getting any work done you are not going to be successful. No work means no money coming in.

There are ways you can limit your distractions while you are working at home. Start by following a few of the tips below

Skip the personal calls. Do you have caller id? If not invest in it. You will be able to screen your calls for emergencies. If the call is not life or death skip it. You can call them back later. Get an answering machine and if the caller needs something important they will leave you a message. Spending the day answering call after call will not help you get your work done.

Stay away from Facebook and other social networking sites. If the website doesn't pertain to your work stay off of it until you are through working. Once you log onto a site like Facebook, it is very easy to waste an hour or more there. Finding out how well you remember the 80's is not going to get your work done any faster. Leave the quizzes and messaging for your free time.

Email can have good and bad points. If you get business emails then you need to check them. If your business emails come to your personal email account it is too easy to become distracted by the personal emails. If the business emails are not something that has to be read right away save them for later. It can take s lot of time to go through each email and respond if needed. Set a time each day to spend going through your email.

Don't have visitors during work hours. This can be hard when an unexpected guest drops by. Explain tot hem that you are working, but you would love to visit with them. Schedule a time when you are not working for a get together. Remember there is nothing wrong with not answering the door while you are working at home.

Learning to limit distractions while working at home can be difficult. The main focus needs to be your job if you want to become successful.

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You had your breakfast, you kissed your kids goodbye as they boarded the bus, now you are prepared to spend the rest of the day working at home. As soon as you sit down to begin working the telephone rings. it is your neighbor down the street wanting to catch up on all the latest gossip. You finally get her off the phone and realize you have wasted an hour. You tell yourself you must get busy working.

Next thing you know someone is ringing the doorbell. Some women from the church are going door to door ministering. You don't want to be rude so you invite them in. Two hours later they leave. The morning is practically through and you have yet to accomplish any work.

You decide to grab lunch and then plan a busy afternoon of work. While you are cleaning up from lunch you notice the refrigerator is a mess. You say to yourself I'll just hurry up and clean this out, it will only take a few minutes, then it is back to work. An hour later you return to working. While you are working you decide to check in on your Facebook page and see what is going on. A half hour later you get back to working.

Before you know it the kids are running through the door ready for an after school snack. Where did the time go? You had good intentions of getting a lot of work done, but it did not happen that way. Does this sound like your day? If it does you need to learn how to limit the distractions when working from home.

Come back tomorrow and learn how you can be more productive each day when working from home. There are tips you can follow to keep the distractions at a minimum.

Photo created by M Nota

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If you are considering giving up your work at home business and returning to a regular job because you are not seeing the results you wanted, ask your self these questions first.

1. Did you allow your work at home business enough time? Getting  a business established takes time. You are not going to become wealthy overnight. It can take a few months before you begin to see any profit. You have to give your business time to become known.

2. Did you put enough effort into your business? If you just work an hour here or an hour there you are not going to have a successful business. Starting your own work at home business requires a lot of hard work. You will have to put in lots of hours marketing and running your business.

3. Do you have a legitimate work at home business? It doesn't matter how hard you work if you do not have a legitimate business. If you paid a large upfront fee to join the business and didn't get anything for your investment you are most likely part of a get rich scam.

Don't be so quick to give up your dreams of working from home. You just have to examine what it is that's holding your business back from becoming successful.

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Sales is such huge business. It used to be just Avon and Mary-Kay, now you can find direct sales jobs with hundreds of companies. The great thing about this type of job is you can work from home. You can schedule your hours around your family.

There are many different types of companies that allow you the ability to sell from home. You can sell toys, books, clothing, makeup, candles, jewelry, plastic bowls, knick knacks, and even adult products.

What is great about direct selling is you can choose something you love to sell. If you like having parties this will be another perk to this type of work at home job. You will be able to have parties showcasing the items you are selling. You can have a party every night of the week and make money from them.

Jobs like this are great for moms. They can work after their children have gone to bed at night, or during school hours. Anyone looking to make some extra money can find a company with something that interests them. There are companies that sell vitamins, wine, Eco friendly products, and so much more.

Now you do have to have great customer service skills to deal with people directly. You have to have the drive to go up to someone and try to sell them a product. This job is not for everyone, but if you are comfortable putting yourself out there you can make a great living doing direct sales.

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