Wow Its Been A While......Working from home.

    I am afraid this is a perfect example of what you should not do when doing a blog to aid your business and SEO rankings.  There are many different opportunities to promote your business online but referred search traffic is one of the best.   However it is not always easy to post an article a day, week, or in my case month.
   I love making jewelry and I love jewelry in general, but this does not mean I can easily sit down and pound out a article a day on making or selling it.  I do have plenty of ideas for these posts but time is short most days.  The lack of time is the biggest challenge for people who work at home.  It is far to easy to let your personal life and your business life merge and this is doubly true if you have children.  Most of the time your family, friends, and children do not recognize that your time is valuable.  For example my husband works from home too but he still sees my jewelry activities as less then important.  I can be in the middle of a complex design and he will ask for something and expect me to drop everything to do it.   I think the hardest part is that children and sometimes even your spouse will see your creative endeavors as a hobby.

   So how do you juggle the demands of personal and business life? One way would be to schedule set work hours and during that time period insist that people leave you alone so you can work.  In my case I just kinda fit work in where I can.  This is why my blog is usually the neglected activity, it is hard to write when my son is home since he interrupts every 5 minutes and sees my computer as competition.  In Barbara Brabec books on selling hand made the lack of business time for those who work from home is at the beginning of the first book.  She also includes several strategies for making business time separate from personal time.  I have 3 of her books and highly recommend them for anyone who is selling their own handmade artisan crafts.

Barbara Brabec Books: (I highly recommend these books if your going to sell crafts online or off the information you will get from these is priceless, she includes everything from doing shows and consignment shops to throwing home parties. She also has plenty of information on selling online, business cards, and more. These books are worth the investment)

Homemade Money: Starting Smart
Handmade for Profit!: Hundreds of Secrets to Success in Selling Arts & Crafts
Homemade Money: Bringing in the Bucks: A Business Management and Marketing Bible for Home-Business Owners, Self-Employed Individuals, and Web Entrepreneurs Working from Home Base
The Crafts Business Answer Book: Starting, Managing, and Marketing a Homebased Arts, Crafts, or Design Business
Make It Profitable!: How to Make Your Art, Craft, Design, Writing or Publishing Business More Efficient, More Satisfying, and MORE PROFITABLE