Starting a new business when you work full time can be a challenge, but it is possible. There is a lot of prep work that you should do before you start. Being prepared is key in the success of your business. • Organize your home Start by organizing your home. Get rid of things you don't need or want anymore. Give your home a once over from top to bottom, room by room. Make sure everything in your home has a specific spot it goes in and that it always stays there. Get rid of clutter as well. When you start a new business with a clean home it won't take you as long to clean each day or week. When you have more time, you will be able to work your business more during each day and week. • Chores Delegate some of the house work to your family. You are not the only one that lives in the house. It's a good idea to prepare your children for adulthood and assigning chores to them will be good for them. It will also help you to find more time to work your business. Create a chore list and assign tasks to each person. The best way to do this is to pick up your house each night before you go to bed and then pick one day a week to clean everything. For example, have the kids pick up their rooms and toys before bed. Make sure dishes are done and the counters are wiped off from dinner. Then on the day you pick you would clean all of the bathroom, vacuum, dust, sweep, and mop. • Schedule your time You now need to sit down with your family and explain the reasoning behind all of this. When they know why you are doing this and how they will benefit, they will be more willing to help. Once you have done this you need to schedule your time so your family knows when you will work your business. Once this schedule is in place and everyone agrees to it, then you need to stick with it. Changing it every once in a while is ok, but for the most part it's important to stick with it so the family knows exactly when you will be working. Working a few hours a night and then during the weekends may be a challenge, so you may need to find other ways to bring in more hours. One way to do that is to spend your lunch hours working. If you can't go home for lunch due to the distance or time, bring work to work with you. It might be worth it for you to purchase a laptop and bring it to work. If you are in a business where you have calls with people, schedule them during your lunch hour. Something else that can be done during the lunch hour is filing or checking and responding to email. That way you won't have to worry about those in the evenings and weekends when you have the dedicated time to work. Just because you work a full time job doesn't mean you can't start a business. If you prepare your family and your home in advance it will have more time to work your business. Include your family whenever you can so they feel like they are apart of it and that will make it a little easier on both them and you. You can work a business and work full time as well. Set your goals and put your mind to it and you can make it happen. Corrie Petersen runs a successful Virtual Assistant business. She enjoys helping others reach their goals and dreams. Check out her website at http://www.virtualfreedom4you.com | 
