How running your own business can help you spend more time with your family

Over the last years, more and more people have been leaving the traditional job market looking for a better quality of life, more free time, and better pay.

Another factor that contributes to changing careers is the possibility of spending more time with the family, especially for professionals with kids.

Do you want to know how starting your own business can be the solution for your tight schedule?

Grab pen and paper to write down our tips, because that’s today’s topic!

Parents want to spend more time with family

And we are not the ones saying so!

A survey carried out by Highland Spring, in 2015, showed that 8 in 10 professionals don’t spend enough time with their kids.

Even though they’re disappointed with the quality time they spend with their kids, most parents say they wouldn’t leave their careers to be a full-time stay-at-home parent.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that many professionals are looking for alternatives that allow them to have an income and still leave them with enough time to take part in that grandmother’s birthday brunch on a Monday of all days.

One market in which you can work

With the development of the Internet over the time, there are countless possibilities for those who want to turn their passions or skills into a profitable activity. We have even written a post with almost 20 options for people who wish to have financial independence and work from home.

This list had many different professions, from arts and crafts products to the digital marketing professional, who works with copy, traffic purchase, and content production for specific niches.

But before creating an online business, you need to consider some factors. The main one is that a good idea is not enough. Entrepreneurship is not always related to inventing a product that is unique in the market rather than identifying problems and coming up with solutions that add value to people’s lives.

Just like any other business, you’ll need lots of planning, identify if your idea is financially possible, and if there are people willing to pay for your product. It’s also important to study the competition in your segment to understand how you can stand out in the market, especially in saturated niches, such as weight-loss products.

It’s possible to analyze it all using free tools, such as Google Trends, Google Keyword Tool, and, later on, Google Analytics can also provide you with important information about your page’s performance. If, after this research, you still want to work on the Internet, there are several business models you can adopt:

• Work as a Producer: If you have a good idea in your hands and believe there are people who would pay for it, you can create a digital product and market on the Internet. There are many formats to make your project available, such as e-books, online courses, podcasts, among others.  
• Work as an Affiliate: A professional Affiliate is the one who promotes other people’s product in exchange for commissions. You can select products related to subjects you master and recommend on your social media. It works pretty well for people who already have a blog or their own website.
• Have an e-commerce: Creating an e-commerce requires a little more work because you need to have your own domain, select products, and take care of shipping but it can be an excellent business model if you have a good product catalog in hands.
• Starting a startup: Thinking of ideas that can help people solve problems, you can create a startup and render services through apps or software, in order to do so, you’ll need to hire professionals specialized in design and coding.
• Work as a digital influencer: the influencer’s job is similar to that of an Affiliate, the difference is that she sells her image to the product, instead of receiving commissions on the sales made. This is an option for people who are famous on the Internet and wish to monetize their personality/lifestyle.

Whatever you choose, you need to have in mind that running your own business will take a lot of dedication, especially in the first few years. So, it’s likely you still won’t have so much time available to spend with your family.

Good news is that if you work focused on constantly improving your processes, you’ll reach this point sooner than you imagine.

Take advantage to understand some of the common myths about the digital marketing.

Working on your own: advantages vs. disadvantages

Besides the obvious advantage of spending more time with your family, working on your own can make different aspects of your life easier, like we’ll feature below.

More flexible routine

Working from home does not mean working less, but you will surely have a more flexible routine. You can decide the best time to begin and end your activities, take a longer break after lunch, or even schedule personal appointments during business hours, normally.

Of course, you need to have common sense when scheduling your daily tasks, so as not to harm the performance of your business.

Cost reduction

Working on the Internet is a lot cheaper than having a brick and mortar business! At Hotmart, for example, there’s no need to be a legal person to host your product on our platform, you can do it as an individual, which means you’ll have no additional costs.

As your sales increase, you’ll find out you can have some advantages by making your business formal, including more flexible tax.

People who work from home also save on transportation, rent (you just need your own computer), lunch out, among other common expenses for people who work outside their homes or have a brick and mortar business. These resources you are left with can be invested in improvements for your product, ads, or relationship actions for your customers.

Personalized work environment

Some people don’t value this topic as much but we know there’s nothing better than working in a place that looks just like us, is there? When we design an office thinking about our preferences and ergonomic needs, it’s easier to have a more productive routine and extract the most out of your business.

But, since not everything is perfect, on the downside you may

Work too much

Forget all you’ve read about making money on your sleep. The truth is that when you’re your own boss, you end up working more than in a traditional job.  

This happens because you don’t have that routine of shutting down your computer, clock out, and leave. The lack of these habits can change your perception of time, even if you don’t realize it. And when you work more than you should, you end up missing out on one of the best advantages the digital marketing has to offer, which is having more time for yourself.

To soften this overload, your relationship with your work needs balance: avoid traps such as answering to work emails after work hours, calling suppliers on the weekend… unless these actions are utterly necessary.

Feeling of loneliness

In the post on working from home, we’ve talked about how an entrepreneur who is just starting out can miss social interactions early on. When you work with other people, you can talk during business hours, go out for lunch, and take part in social gatherings, whereas when you work from home you can spend long periods without talking to others but through email, which ends up being very lonely.

To go around this project, you can work at coffee houses or create a co-working space with other entrepreneurs, which is, basically, renting a space together, where everyone can work on their own projects, mixing business with pleasure in a positive way.

Financial insecurity

Until your investment begins to have a return, it’s possible you have to put a break on your personal expenses, and open up things you used to do, such as going on a trip. The entrepreneur also loses the right to employment benefits, such as food voucher, transportation voucher, health plan, and steady salary, which increases the pressure and the responsibility of making money in the first few months.

If you have a big family, it’s important to come up with a financial plan, foreseeing your expenses for the next 12 months, so, you’ll know how much you’ll have to save to take your idea off the paper and ensure good quality of life to your children.

Tips to share your time between business and family

When the company is in its beginning and hasn’t established its authority in the market, it is common for the entrepreneur to spend less time with her family and friends.

But it’s important that you spend this little time you have with quality. Thinking about this, we’ve shared three simple tips that can help you balance your personal and business lives.

Talk to people

Having your own business doesn’t change only your routine as it affects the day to day life of people who live with you. So, it’s very important to talk to your family, explaining the reasons why you’ll need to dedicate more time and ask these people not to interrupt you while you’re working.

Remember to include them in your activities whenever possible, that will help ease the feeling you’re always busy or away.

Set daily goals

To optimize your time, the entrepreneur can establish at least three activities to finish by the end of the day. It can be answering to a number of emails, post videos, or answering to comments.

By coming up with a list of priorities, it’s easy to lose track of what is an essential task and tasks that can be done later on. This way, if there’s a demand at the end of the day, you’ll find it easier to decide if it can be left to the next day.

Come up with a reward system

Everybody is more motivated when they get a reward after an activity well-done.

Establish small rewards for every goal reached. This can be an excellent strategy to self-motivate because you have an extra urge to perform a task within its deadline instead of procrastinating.

As a result, a productive entrepreneur has more free time between an activity and other to something she likes, be with her family, or even sleep better.

What about you? Do you have any tips to balance work and personal lives? Share with us in the comments section below.