Government figures show the number of women registered as self-employed went up to 1.357 million which is a 5.3 per cent rise for the period of the last quarter of 2012 and the last quarter of 2013. Whereas the figures for men show self-employment rose by only 2.8 per cent. At the same time, there are 14 million women employed which is record-breaking since the Office of National Statistics records began.

Many women would prefer to avoid the hassle of the daily commute which can take up at least 2 hours of your day. This means that 10 hours of your week or 40 hours per month is wasted. Choosing to work from home offers the opportunity to look after the family and be on top of the daily household chores as those 2 hours travel is spent at home.

Working from home

Working from home best suits the person who is self-disciplined as there can be so many distractions in the home, on the road or with neighbours or friends who tend to drop in as they know you are at home.

This is because a common and largely unavoidable challenge of working from home is that of maintaining the required degree of self-motivation. Choosing to work out of your own home, after all, is essentially taking a career direction that has no direct oversight, limited physical interactions with other people and no end of potential distractions.

Self-motivation is the main and obvious challenge of working from home. Another problem is not having that interaction with those of similar jobs in the office environment.

In order to set yourself up for the day, you should uphold some of the traditional requisites for a day in the office which is getting dressed for work instead of slopping around in your dressing gown. It has been proven that in order to boost greater productivity, you should treat every day as a day in an official office.

PA working from home

Once you have decided to work from home, you should make sure you create an office environment in one room or part of the house. This should include having quality IT hardware, software and the necessary accessories to run an efficient office. In replicating an office in the home, you will then be pitching your business at a higher level and you will be working efficiently.

As a self-employed individual, you are your own boss therefore, you need to make decisions and have a good understanding of how your business should operate. Your skills need to be A1 which should also include bookkeeping as you will need to run accounts for clients and yourself. Most of all you need to be able to market yourself and retain your clients.

Equipped with a wide range of skills can often lead to increased business from the client. A client may engage you to manage his diary and type reports but if he is aware that you can organise events, he may engage your services for example planning his wife’s 50th birthday. The important skill is being able to sell yourself by making sure your clients are aware of your many skills.

A key career for people who are working from home is Bookkeeping. Find out about becoming a Bookkeeper at Bookkeeping Course Org