Finding “balance” when working from home is one of the most difficult challenges for the home work force.  By “balance” I mean finding the balance between “work” and “personal” time.

For a lot of people, working from home sounds like the “dream job”.  Get up whenever you want to, stroll down the hall to your “office”, stay in you PJ’s all day long, take lunch whenever, work whenever, and get all of your personal chores done during the day.  Life is great working from home.

For the people that actually work from home the “dream job” can become overwhelming.  I currently work from home and have worked from home for another employer throughout my career.  Working from home takes dedication.

The misnomer is because you are home you have more time.  Not true. It seems that you work more when you are home because you don’t leave the office.  Your office is your home therefore, there is no disconnect at the end of the day. According to some of my peers who also work from home, they also try and find balance from work and home and experience the same struggles.

I’m not saying that working from home is all bad. There are some advantages of having the opportunity to juggle your schedule when needing to more easily. But keep in mind, you are still juggling and find yourself compensating for the time by working earlier or later.

Finding the balance is difficult but can be achieved.  For myself, I had to create a routine that I follow each morning. I get up at the same time and go through my morning routine as if I was actually leaving for the day.  Instead of getting into my car to drive to the office, I go to my office down the hall.  I try and schedule lunch at the same time (if possible) and stay within my working boundaries, the same as if I was at an office.  I do still struggle with keeping work and home separate, but we all do at times when there are deadlines and projects/items that needs to be completed.  It’s making sure that we don’t allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by trying to do everything and learn to shut down the computer for the night and walk away.  It’s OK – really.

Having a support system of family, friends and peers is a great help to finding how to achieve your balance.  I found a few groups that can help plus an article that is inspiring to finding a healthier you.  Check out this article called How to Be Happy With Yourself from HowStuffWorks.  Offers great insight and advice and definitely worth the read.

Also, if you  belong to LinkedIn and are a female, join the Groups: Girlfriends In Business and Women’s Network of Entrepreneurs.  You’ll find great people to connect with who offers support and insight.

How do you find your “balance”?  Do you have helpful advise that others can use? Feel free to comment.

This is a common question among many organizations and associations.  Should you become involved in Social Media as a company or not? The biggest challenge faced by associations is time and staff.  Everyone has had to cut staff and/or take on multiple responsibilities over the past year or so and no one  has the time to add another responsibility.  Social Media involvement does take a commitment whether from one or multiple staff members.

There are a few ways that involvement can be addressed that may fit into your company strategy and profile.

Should you become involved in Social Media – YES.  According to the Nielsen 2010 Media Fact Sheet, Time spent on social networking sites in the U.S. increased 277%; The average U.S. worker spends 5 hrs a month visiting social networks at the office; Facebook reaches 56% of the active U.S. Internet universe with an average usage of 6 hrs a month per user; Twitter grew 500% over a year; and 32% of all mobile web users visit social network sites.

Due to these statistics, it would definitely be in your best interest to become involved in social meeting as a company and marketing strategy.  Now, to what extent do you become involved?

This will really depend on your staff and time allotment.  Adding a blog to your site and providing content and resources to your viewing audience and member is a huge commitment but one that will pay off in the long one as establishing yourself as a knowledge leader in your field.  Blogs do take time and commitment to write, but is it possible to spend about 1 hour a week on your blog work?  Consider video blogging vs. writing a blog.  Make it a point throughout the day jotting/writing down blog topics and key points (approximately 5-10). Schedule an hour to sit in front of a video (does not have to be a professional production) and tape a 5 minute blog session on each topic that you’ve recorded. The video blogs can then be posted weekly to your site and based upon the number of video blogs that you recorded, you could have about a  months or a little more of video blogs to post that took you a few hours to complete.

Assign social media sites to various people in your organization. Arrange for these people to be in charge of each site and check/perform searches on the selected keywords for your organization, and interact with others. A schedule can be arranged where this occurs at least 3 times a day for approximately 1/2 hour each time. This provides some type of interaction with the social media main stream and enables your organizations name and content to be seen and discussed.

Becoming involved in Social Media does involve a commitment of time and resources. But if this is planned according to your companies goals and staffs schedule and abilities, can become a positive tasks to any ones day while increasing company awareness, site visitors and potential members.

When building and maintaining your brand, internal resources such as your employees are valuable assets since they are on the front line and communicate with your customers on a day-to-day basis.  Employee respect of the company and brand will go a long way to ensuring that your message is conveyed to your customers.  A few steps to this include:

1. Recognize and Reward – Offer employees incentives to take that extra step in customer service.  Offer awards and/or prizes based on customer feedback or product satisfaction.
2. Staffing – Ensure that your staff is well qualified and skilled to lend themselves to reinforce your brand.  During employee training, make brand identity a key component.
3. Employee Feedback – Share your ideas/brands and plans with your employees and offer them with the ability to ask questions and provide feedback.  Feedback is a great way to open communication, ensure that employees are working for the same goal and provides employees with a vested interest since their feedback is being sought and acted upon.
4. Measure Performance – Reach out to customers, media and vendors to check to ensure that your message and brand is being conveyed appropriately.

Building your brand isn’t something that is only done externally through Social Media, Meetings, your website, etc., but comes from within as well through employee interaction with customers, vendors and the general public each and every day.