When you have a home – based business, you are responsible not only for producing the products or services that the business provides but also for the operation of the entire business. It is a lot of responsibility, to be sure, but it also gives you a great deal of freedom to choose how you do business. One major aspect of managing your home – based business is managing your work load.
When you have a service – based business (or businesses) like I do, you are responsible for deciding how many of which kind of projects you have on your plate. This is one of those things that is never really done or completed, it happens on an ongoing basis. The frequency with which you will have to evaluate your work load depends on the type of business or business that you have.
For example, if you have a freelance writing business which handles many, smaller projects then you probably finish at least a few projects each week. You probably make decisions on at least a weekly basis about when to bid on more jobs and how many jobs to bid on. I have both a freelance writing business and a law office. Each business has only a handful of clients, and they are long term assignments. I only really have to think about my workload when I finish working on a case or a project.
Today, I went to a court hearing. At the hearing, it was decided that this particular case will be closed in a month and no additional hearings would be needed after today. As I drove home from court, I thought about what that meant for my work load. It turns out that having that case close will not have much of an impact or free up much time because it had required so little attention during the time that it was open. My decision, then, is to do nothing to increase my workload right now.
Photo by ronnie b on morguefile.com.