Next week grass roots networking communities are celebrating the inaugural International Work At Home Person Week, Feb 5 to 11, to highlight the important contribution home based entrepreneurs, admin people, creative entrepreneurs etc make to the economy and to communities.

Approximately 67 percent of Australian and 66 percent of US small businesses are home based and yet there is very little recognition and support for people who work from home. Isolation is a big factor for people who work from home as is the need to set clear boundaries between work-time and family-time.

If you’d like to get involved, more info is available at: http://bit.ly/w3WWwK.

If you work from home, what’s your biggest challenge?

ps: Thanks @rich-brooks for giving me the  green light to post about this today!

pps: sorry, I had to edit to get rid of unwanted MS Word formatting. Maybe a glitch?

@stonepeople Hi Patricia, thanks for posting. I think we all have that challenge! I find it really hard to pull away from the computer and do housework etc. Something I really ought to do right now : ).

OK, I’ll chime in here! Thank you @casmccullough and @stonepeople that is my biggest challenge, housework. I have tried to organize my week so that on Mondays I do errands, Fridays I write and “sharpening my tools” by looking at updates for online tools I’m using. I may take sometime to investigate new tools.

 I do most of my housework in the morning but I divide it up by days. Tuesday a clean the kitchen(of course I do basics like dishes, etc. daily), including the fridge, things like that. I can stay focused on my tasks better if I do something around the house before I start my workday. BTW, notice I say TRY. LOL Last Friday I spent most of the day laying the foundation for a new project that was dropped in my lap. I’m grateful for the business.:-)

Thank you @stonepeople   Its true! I’m looking for someone to come in once a month. It isn’t much but It will help.:-)

HOORAY for double standards. LOL  I’m happy for you and inspired! I have a friend who will start helping me once a month at first until I get this new business going. Its still going to be a bit of a challenge doing stuff in between but It will be a huge relief for sure. BTW, my Beau is a clean freak, unlike me and he does worry about the way the house looks. He does pitch in but he works too. She’ll be starting in March. She’s in NYC this month.YAY!

@atlantarobin Yes, every time I get overwhelmed about the state of the house, I clean my sink and think of the Flylady! She’s a godsend for many a frazzled mother! 

Flowers would be nice! But some better bank rates for micro business e-commerce would be better!

And, I wasn’t satisfied with just one day so we made it a whole celebratory week!

Fly lady rocks (but I’d forgotten about her ) Great post. And, yes I noticed there are no men talking about the state of the house. Let’s celebrate the fact that we CAN be at home!!! in our pajamas if we want!!! I’m going to check out the site Cas, thanks for starting this thread. @stonepeople @casmccullough @atlantarobin @dyanebradley @casmccullough

Thank you for the suggestion @atlantarobin I’ll take a look at her site.

go girl! @debbielynnava right, how do you ever get away? speaking of that, you should set a “break” time for yourself to go to a coffee shop or something for a short period of time and chill (even with your phone turned off!) Read the comics or something inspirational @abigailgorton

@casmccullough @deairby @abigailgorton @debbielynnava @atlantarobin @stonepeople I definitely fall into the “what housework?” category, albeit occasionally the dust bunnies do attack!

I plan to participate and love the idea! It is amazing how overlooked virtual work/telework is for small businesses.Too many people think it’s only housewives who are not serious about their busiiness but are dabbling.

I know many a small business that has started at home, with much success–and keep it home based in the long term.

@joanmuschampfagnani It’s beautiful eh!

@casmccullough Very beautiful and seems almost timeless. I just wish more businesses would allow appropriate employees to work at home. It can save them lots of overhead costs, improve productivity, and vastly improve quality of life for employees!

Update… some exciting news… this article was published on Startup Smart on Thursday. Only found it today because a journo who had seen it called me to interview me for a major suburban newspaper  (goes out to all suburbs in my city). How cool is that? Here’s a link to the article: http://www.startupsmart.com.au/home-based-business/online-community-launches-work-at-home-person-week/201202025257.html

@ptwylie Our hashtags are #workathome and for International WAHP Week #iwahp!

Paul, the P in WAHP stands for person because I don’t think that work at home dads would like to be called WAHDS! (pronounced wods) LOL!

We chose to be as inclusive as possible. Most of the WAH communities focus on women-only. We have quite a few men in our member group.

More exciting news, a major newspaper chain has picked up the story here in Oz and am being interviewed this morning. PR tip: you only need one major chain to pick up your story and publish online for it to be social media gold for you!

An article was published in the Sunshine Coast Daily today about iWAHP Week! Just wanted to share. http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2012/02/10/homework-pays-off-in-a-big-way-cas-mccullough/Overall, a great start to this awareness campaign! Looking forward to next year!