Hard to believe I've been juggling so much for so long.

Although this business, www.GiftCardGirlfriend.com, is a new venture, it’s not my first entrepreneurial attempt. In fact, I’ve been working from home for nearly 11 years and though not everything I’ve done has been financially fruitful, it has all been worth the effort.

I’m routinely asked how I’ve managed to be a “work-at-home mom” (WAHM) all this time. Some want to know because they’re curious. But more want to know so they can do the same. In fact, when contributing to an article recently published in Parenting and Baby Talk magazine (“The New Stay-at-Home Mom”), I had the chance to reflect on my journey and the advice I give others wanting to be a WAHM.

1. Plan ahead. If you want to work from home at some point in your life (even if it’s a few years away), think strategically now. Pick a major in college, learn a skill, or transition into a position with your current employer that does not require you to be in the office. For example, as a computer programmer, I could get my work done just about anywhere. As a manager, I had to be on site with the people I managed.
2. Deliver. If you want a manager to believe you will work from home unsupervised, then do it in the office as well. Prior to becoming a mom, I worked at one of the world’s largest oil companies. But when my thoughts turned from crude oil to baby oil, so did my priorities. I approached management with a plan to work part-time, exclusively from home. Because I had been a reliable worker for many years, they agreed.
3. Over-communicate. I kept management happy with continual status updates—more so than I would have shared had I been sitting in a cubical next to the water cooler. Because my manager always knew what I was working on and when to expect completion, she didn’t care what hours of the day I actually got the work done.
4. Be flexible.Pre-WAHM, I may have asked to be on top projects with more visibility. But post-baby, I did whatever work the company needed as long as I could do it at home.

That’s how I started. But the work I’ve done ever since has been vast and varied. I’ve designed teddy bears, invented products, ghostwritten a book, programmed software, written press releases, and done a hundred other things to help pay the bills. But the lessons I learned in creating that first virtual work environment contributed greatly to my success.