5 Things You Should Be Doing While You Work From Home
The entire world has been put on this March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has forced many people to work from home or to lose their jobs entirely.
During this state of uncertainty, many of us veterans of working from home feel the need to help normalize and strategize our situations.
For small business owners, this is the most opportune time to taking a closer look at your business. Besides laying out all your finances and potential cutbacks, you need to be focusing on ways to connect with your clientele on social media. This means coming up with a marketing strategy and producing creative content to keep them engaged.
In a nutshell, here are 5 things that small business owners should be working on at home.
RELATED: 5 Free Resources I Use For My Small Business
5. Take a Breather
The stress on uncertainty is taking a toll on all of us. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking the weekend to gather your thoughts. Take a short breather by doing a little crafting project, picking up an instrument, or simply watching Netflix.
I know it can be easy to work leisurely while you work from home, which is why I recommend taking just one of two days off to catch your breath. Any more than that, and you’ll start to get complacent and unproductive.
This is, sadly, coming from personal experience!
While you hustle from home, just remember to keep exercising (go for a walk, find a workout video online, etc). Try standing while you work, or at least take a 5-10 break every hour to get up and move around.
4. Make a Clear, Designated Work Space
A part of working from home means setting up your office. I can tell you from personal experience that not having a designated workspace lowers your productivity immensely.
I’m not going to lie, I still switch it up a bit. I started writing this blog at my dining room table and now I’m on my couch.
But that’s probably why this blog is a week late.
Your ideal workspace should have a nearby outlet (I have a power strip on my desk), some type of filing cabinet, and of course, coasters for coffee. I also recommend having a candle, music, and even a journal nearby for times when you need to take a break and relax.
I just released a NEVER BORED Quarantine To-Do List in case you need some motivation to get things done while you work from home.
3. Work On Your P&L Sheets
We're nearing the end of the first quarter of 2020, which means it’s time to look at finances anyway. Dig into your receipts and the rest of your financial data and get crackin' on those numbers. Make a Q1 Profit and Loss sheet to help you see what direction your business might be headed in.
Forecast future losses
Your P&L will help you forecast future losses for your business during this time. This will be hard to do, considering we don’t know how long the COVID-19 virus will affect our economy.
My suggestion would be to take the last couple of weeks as a guide to determine your business loss (or maybe even profit).
Establish your budgets
While you work from home, it’s a good idea to rewrite your budget. Figure out where you are spending the most money and decide whether or not the expenses need to be cut down going into Quarter 2.
Employees and cutbacks
For small business owners with employees, determining whether or not you can afford to keep employees on payroll is going to be a tough decision. The Small Business Association has multiple sources about this situation in particular. Read up on their Coronavirus (COVID-19): Small Business Guidance & Loan Resources to help you decide how to move forward with potential cutbacks.
2. Q2 Business Plans
Many small business owners are worried about what will happen to their business in Quarter 2.
Despite this uncertainty, you need to be laying out some sort of business plan for Q2. With your new budget handy, you will be able to focus on where you have room to spend. And if your budget is next to none, you can utilize free marketing (such as consistent social media posting) to keep your business top-of-mind.
To help you with this, use my Creative Content Quarterly Business Planner Template. This is structured to help you outline your Q2 goals. It requires you to have a Canva account, which you can get for free here.
Here are a few things you will need to fill out for your business plan while working from home:
🎨Q1 Summary and Highlights
🎨Market Analysis
🎨Competition Analysis
🎨Q2 Company Goals
🎨Q2 Budget
🎨Q2 Content Strategy
Knowing what you want to achieve heading into Q2 is going to help you narrow down your focus while you work from home.
1. Start Making Creative Content While Work From Home
For some small business owners, the only thing they really can do right now is make content for their business. Your Creative Content is all about helping creative entrepreneurs make an impact in their digital space, so make sure you gather some free DIY Supplies. I also have plenty of blogs on creating content, and you can follow me on Instagram for daily social media tips.
Here are my top recommendations on where to get started with Your Creative Content while you working from home.
🎨Email Lists: ALL types of small business owners should be implementing this. Coaches, lawyers, restaurant owners... create something free that requires email signup. Make an eBook about running your own business or a PDF about how to handle COVID.
For example, I just created a FREE Instagram Story Templates for anyone that joins my email lists.
🎨 Blogs: People are going to be online a LOT more now. And what have you been seeing the most on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn? Blogs (mostly about the virus).
I don't recommend writing about this situation in particular unless you're a medical professional. Instead, start writing blogs about how your clients can be making the most out of being at home. Aka learning new recipes, doing their taxes, at-home workouts... the sky is the limit!
🎨 Social Media: You know you've been meaning to catch up on your social media posting... well now is the PERFECT time to do it. I rave about @laterapp all the time because it's easy and IG approved.
Create new templates, research hashtags, and schedule your social media for at least the next 30 days. I swear it will only take you, like, 2 hours!
RELATED: 5 Types of Content You Should Be Creating in 2020
And if you’ve done all that and you still don’t have time to keep up with Your Creative Content, consider outsourcing.
Outsourcing your copywriter or social media manager (like me) will not only save you money on an in-house position, but it will ensure that your business is still up front and center until we can get past these difficult times.
