Getting involved in an online business with your spouse should be easy. You have already got a relationship built on trust, you probably communicate well and you both probably have similar drive and commitment to succeed as work at home entrepreneurs.
With both of you being at home the daily tasks of washing clothes and cleaning the house can be shared and work time set while while one looks after the children. The home based business should flourish in this climate. What if it does not though?
You have to set you boundaries early in the peace. You have to plan and talk before you even start. Here are three considerations along these lines:
1. Clarify both of your expectations:
You need to do this for the business, the children, the housework and the other tasks that make your world go around. If you do not then there is a possibility that there will be frustrations from one or both sides. Remember that you are planning to be in the same house for all of the time.
As romantic as this may sound it can often end up with small bits of office equipment becoming dangerous projectiles and aimed at various parts of your body.
Having a roster helps with housework and other tasks around the home. The last thing that you want is for this mundane menial stuff to be the thing that breaks your focus and concentration on your business goals.
2. Acknowledge each others skills and way of doing things.
Chances are that both of you have developed different ways of being organized and different levels of disorganization that you can put up with around your work space. This is fine as long as you can both accept this of the other person. You do not want one side of the corporation cleaning up for the other in the time that they should be focused on their business tasks.
Other skills that you may have both acquainted to need to be acknowledged too and if you can identify some of the areas where you are both individual experts then a knowledge development plan can help you plan how to teach each other your different skills.
It may also come to pass that one of you is focused on the computer generating leads for the list while the other prefers the people contact and talking to people about their conflicts and aspirations in their own home based business. There is nothing wrong with this so long as both partners acknowledge the importance of both tasks for the overall health of your online business venture.
3.Plan to be together sometimes with all phones off:
You need to take the opportunity to plan to be together and turn off your phones and talk, walk or play. The online home based business can be all consuming particularly in the early stages or during times of fluctuating income. Remember that you have made this choice so that you can spend quality time together.
Think of some of the time that you may be saving by working at home. You do not have to commute to work and maybe this saves you two hours a day. Here is some time that you could dedicate to your family, spouse or joint hobby.
If you prefer you could both have separate hobbies and use this time to pursue these. Make sure that this is an agreed option though and one party is not in the office while the other is out hunting and gathering.
Before you start your time together each day remind yourself that this is time that if you were not an entrepreneur and having a good shot at being successful online then you would be sitting in your car in heavy traffic or an a long drive to work . This will help you to appreciate the time that you have created to be together.
The occasional lunch out together to discuss business progress or to not talk about the business at all will also help you keep focused on your relationship outside of the business. It is imperative for your inner health.
If you are lucky enough to live next to a fine coffee house then you should plan to frequent it to relax during the day. Many people find that when they start to work for themselves that they push themselves harder than any boss has ever pushed them.
You have to be mindful of your original goals of choosing to work on your online homebased business together to ensure you do not become slaves to your business.
Remember these three points and you should be on the road to success in all parts of your life.