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Your wardrobe could start to slip when you are working from home. #vatip 
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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant. I’m your host, Tiffany parson, and you’re watching episode number 108. Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Today’s episode is going to be a fun one. I just wanted to share six things that you may not realize that may happen to you when you start working from home full-time in your virtual assistant business.
Now, these are all things that I have experienced firsthand and thought it would be fun to share with you today on the podcast. I’m kind of already in vacation mode. The summer is wrapping up, so there’s some final fun things that I’m going to be doing with my family. I’m looking forward to that. I’m like, okay, I want to talk about something really fun on the podcast today.
Okay, number one, and I’ve got my notes right in front of me, so if you see me glancing like this, I’m checking out my notes making sure I’m saying it correctly and getting all my numbers right.
1) This is one of those things that happens when you work from home full-time and that is unannounced visitors and phone calls.
It is so important for us to be strict on our time because if we just let it loose, we answer the door every time it rings, we answer our phone every time it rings, guess what, that takes our focus off what’s going on. I’ve gotten to the point if my doorbell rings, I do not answer it.
My phone, I have it set to favorites. I have an iPhone. It only is set to do not disturb, and only those that are on my favorites list come through during the day. That would be my mom and my husband because basically if there’s an emergency they’ll call and I know to answer them.
Otherwise, everybody else goes to voicemail during the day for business. Because if anything else comes up, it’s just a fun conversation, I will totally lose track of what’s going on and it’s just important to stay focused. Don’t let those unannounced things get in your way.
2) Clothes. Now, this may seem kind of funny, but a lot of times I plan what I’m going to wear for the day or not, you know, like it just might be t-shirt and jeans. I think about am I doing any web conferencing that particular day. I’ll look at my calendar and see what is going on for that day. If I’m not on camera, I’m not going to record anything, then it may just be whatever, a quick t-shirt, shorts or jeans depending on what the season is, of course.
Now, here’s the funny thing about that. If you decide to head out for a break or just change of scenery, do a little check. Check yourself from head to toe to see what you have on and if you should be walking out of the house. I can remember one day I left the house. I was about to leave the house. Had on a tank top and shorts and I get in the car and I look down and I’m like, oh, shoot, I forgot to put on lotion today.
When you’re used to being in the house all day working, you’re just so, you know, focused and all that stuff because you didn’t let any unannounced phone calls or visitors get in the way. Then when it’s time to go run and do something outside the house, you forget.
So do a little self-check. See what you’ve got on before you leave the house. The other thing with that is that your wardrobe may start to get off. Because when we work we’re very conscious of, you know, what we had on the previous day. This kind of goes into number three.
3) Making sure you don’t have the same outfit on if you plan to do videos or selfies.
If you’re doing live videos on Facebook or Instagram Stories and stuff like that and you’ve got on the same outfit that you had on the day before, I mean, it’s fine if that happens, no biggie. Just be aware that that’s what’s up. If you don’t want that to happen, then you just have to be conscious and go back to that video, do a little check. Okay, what did I have on yesterday? Because of the video or just space out your videos and when you take your selfies and you don’t have to worry about it.
Now, this is the other thing I was going to say and that is the wardrobe could start to slip. Because when we’re working every day, we’re aware of what we had on Monday. We know Friday. We know what we wore on Wednesday. When you work at home, you don’t even think about that. It’s more like this is my favorite shirt. These are the most comfortable pants or most comfortable skirt.
Shoes, if you’re like me, forget about it. Shoes in the house, no, don’t wear any shoes in the house at all. Shoes, oh, my gosh, my shoe game is not good right now because I don’t ever have to wear shoes. I’m in the house all the time.
That’s something to be conscious of and aware of if you are working from home full-time. It’s been over nine years for me, so I have to make a conscious effort to know, okay, I need to go get me some shoes for more than just the gym and a quick dinner here and there. But some really, you know, fun, cool shoes that I like and all that good stuff. I’m looking down now because, no, I don’t have on shoes. I’m in the house.
Same for your outfit like your dressy versus your casual outfits. You probably will end up with more casual things than dressy, and I’ve been on the hunt shopping online. I love to shop online – shopping online and finding some shirts that are not too casual. It’s easy to fall into that whole t-shirt kind of thing because nobody is seeing you. It’s something to be aware of and be conscious about. Check out the wardrobe. We aware of that.
A lot of times when something comes up like I need to know weeks in advance so I can prepare because I don’t have all these fun outfits in my closet ready to go just because I don’t have to.
4) You may have no idea what day it is. All the days start to blur together and you may not realize that it’s Thursday and, you know, you may be thinking, gosh, I don’t know. Is it Tuesday or is it Thursday?
I tell you, I woke up this morning. I literally had to think, okay, what day is it? A lot of times it’s just centered around what do I have to do today? I keep track of the date. Thank goodness for the day on the phone and the date on the computer. Otherwise, I definitely would not know that.
But I keep my calendar closer than I ever kept it before when I was working in Corporate America because I just have no clue what day it is. When the weekends come, there’s really not a whole lot of difference between the weekend and the weekday except family being home on the weekend versus the weekday.
5) Noise outside. Oh, my gosh, this morning our lawn people were mowing the grass and they get close to the window. I mean, it can get loud outside, so being aware of that. Then there’s one of our neighbor kids. He practices his skateboard up and down the street, up and down the street. The noise of the skateboard. It’s just something to be aware of, and also if anybody is driving by there’s music and stuff like that, just the noise outside.
I think I’m probably more sensitive to it because I work in quiet. Some days I may have the TV on or a little music on. But most of the days, it’s really quiet if I need to think or make sure that, if I have a lot of things to do, making sure that I get it all straight. If it’s requiring, you know, brain power, make sure I got this list straight and that list straight or what have you.
But on a slow day, I may have more noise going on inside. But on the quiet days, I’m very aware. I’m aware of when the birds chirp outside, you know, anything. Somebody is talking outside, whatever. You become really sensitive to the noise outside.
6) This one, it makes me scream. People assume you’re available because you’re at home.
If you tell them you’re not available, they’re looking at you like you have two heads. Like, “Okay, but I thought you were at home.” Okay, but me being at home has nothing to do with my availability to you to do whatever it is, whether it’s answer the door, answer the phone, go somewhere, run an errand, do a favor, any of that stuff. You get tired after a while reminding people that you’re working, so I just don’t anymore. I just…not available. You don’t owe anyone an explanation if you’re not available. You’re just not.
Anyway, those are six things that you may not be aware of, or if you are already working home full-time you can definitely relate to and you probably have some of your own to add to this list. If you’ve got some of your own to add to the list, I’d love to hear from you. If you don’t, I’d love to hear from you as well on your thoughts about these six things that you may not be aware of because you’re working from home full-time.
Anyway, have a wonderful and fabulous day. I’m kind of on vacation mode, fun time, end of the summer, a couple weekends left for, you know, sun and fun and water before we’ll start thinking about the fall, right, which means, gosh, we have four more months for this year. I’m going to get a little serious with you.
How are your goals looking? All the things that you wanted to accomplish this year, how are they looking?
You’ve got four more months and you know how the end of the year goes. It goes so fast. Once back to school happens, there’s Labor Day. What’s in October? My birthday is in October. But, hey, you may be doing fall festivals or maybe you celebrate Halloween. I don’t know. Then there’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and we’re done. We’re into a whole new year. It won’t be long. This year will be over very soon.
Don’t waste any more time thinking, asking questions. Nothing is wrong with thinking or asking questions, but you know if you’ve been on a topic too long. You know if you’ve been researching too long, digging too long. You know it’s been too long. It’s time to start moving. You’ve got four months left. Make the decision. Win this year. You can do it.
Have a wonderful and fabulous day.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.
See you next time!
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