The Chief Home Officer

Want to work from home, make BIG! money, drive a Porsche, captain your own yacht, and sip the best champagne (though not while behind the wheel)?

Go somewhere else.

The Chief Home Officer is too busy helping his three kids with their homework, delivering client projects, working before the sun rises and taking a mid-afternoon siesta in the hammock out front.

Sure, home officers can make real money. But I'm more interested in finding real balance. I ditched an ill-paying day-job in 1989 - with my wife's blessing - to make-it or break-it on my own as a contract copywriter.

Almost two decades later, we're still hitting on all cylinders - and raising three kids and living life large and finding balance along the way. I write and speak on how to "home office" (I apparently make my own verbs, too), for business owners and teleworkers alike. With no key on our latch, our kids come home to Daddy, Mommy and Riley (our Kerry blue terror and always-hopeful-but-never-successful squirrel hunter).

Sure it would be fun to pull up in a Porsche or set sail for the Bahamas onboard the 58-foot Hatteras. But a modicum of modesty can be a good thing (truth be told, we do OK, and not by selling widgets to family, friends or neighbors - ads on the right of this page notwithstanding).

So take a look around. While you're at it, visit my site, www.chiefhomeofficer.com. You'll see hundreds of articles on launching or running a home office, countless links to good business sites, and can even subscribe to Home Office Success Stories, my weekly ezine on working from home. No Spam, empty promises or faux sparkling glitter of home office riches.

Just reality, plain and simple.

Enjoy.

Jeff

I'm The SOHO Contrarian.

I'm a home officer who naps during the day. I mow the lawn, do the laundry, run errands, and see to the chores. I play with the kids, hit the beach or take an afternoon jog. I work in my shorts, t-shirt or underwear, and go unshaven for days on end.

Or I don't do any of these at all.

You see, home officers represent a mixed bag of work styles, rules and habits - most of which are governed by no set rules at all.

I recently flouted the "conventional wisdom" vis-?is established home office taboos in response to a writer's query on organizing the home office. He had been fed a litany of "rules" related to home officing. For example, he had been told that it's a "rule" to clear the desk at the end of every day. Hogwash. My desk is generally a Disaster Zone during the week. But I countered that it gets cleaned when big projects end or the weekend comes.

Others also told him a smart home officer doesn't do chores, naps, family tasks on business time. If you're a teleworker, maybe that's true (telework isn't a day care alternative). But as Home Officers, we're free to decide, amend or bend those mandates for ourselves.

I find myself becoming the home office contrarian - debunking all the traditional "rules" of home officing by splashing such thoughts with a healthy dose of cold reality. Truth be told, I don't just pooh-pooh these rules nonchalantly. I support my supposition by saying, essentially, "You're the entrepreneur. You know what your deadlines and client needs are." Working from home affords us certain liberties we can't get as a clock-puncher in the corporate tower. Like "punching in" at 4 a.m., or hitting the hay for a nap at 2 p.m. Many times, I've cranked out significant work before the sun has arisen, and been awakened by a client's mid-afternoon call. I've even been known to take the portable phone out to the hammock and take a siesta there.

I also carry my Blackberry on vacations, log on from a wifi-enabled hotel room while the family is hours from awakening, or make a biz call from a hockey rink. Work is a thing, not a place, and it goes on irrespective of location or rules. I've found my balance.

The reality is home officing is what we entrepreneurs and teleworkers make of it. The writer got a kick out of my take on things. But then I had to bid adieu, for it was time for my afternoon nap . . .