There are plenty of reasons to take the leap and start your own business. For me, I launched my own Google Ads agency, Sunday Digital, in 2019 to secure some more flexibility.

Working remotely was a fairly novel concept back then – even in the digital marketing space. My workplace was very family-friendly and offered one work-from-home-day each week, but on the other four days, I was locked into a three-hour commute. I was about to hit ‘school-mum’ territory (which has notoriously unfriendly work hours) and wanted work to be more flexible in order to do the school run.

Running a business from home definitely has its pros and cons. However, from day one, there were a few key things that helped me grow my business to where it is today.

TURN OFF ALL WORK-RELATED NOTIFICATIONS When you're working from home there's already a lack of physical distance between your workplace and your living space. In order to carve out a distinct separation between ‘work time’ and ‘home time’, turning off work notifications is a must – this means no internal messaging, email or social media notifications. Turn them off! It's liberating and such a game changer. (Disclaimer – I do give full permission to keep your PayPal notifications on to give you a little endorphin-hit whenever a payment goes through.)

HAVE A DEDICATED WORK AREA If you can, allocate a dedicated office area in your home that you only use for work. Shut the door when you're done for the day so you can switch off from work mode when you're not on the clock. The boundaries between home and work life can quickly become blurred when you work remotely – so things like having a lunch break and a firm finish time each day will help keep you in check and help prevent burnout.

EMBRACE SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY Having a fully remote team is different to working in-office – it can be daunting as an employer to not be able to physically ‘see’ your team. Embrace systems and project-management software so that you can feel connected and confident that your team is getting the job done. Make sure your team is proactively sharing insights and wins that would normally be an offhand comment in the office. You don't want to lose the value of learning from each other.

KNOW YOURSELF Building a fully remote business is not for everyone. Do you love in-person collaboration and get your social fix from work? Perhaps look at a hybrid model or build your own personal online community of like-minded business owners – these people will become your personal cheerleaders and sounding boards. If that doesn’t work, remote life may not be for you. On the other hand, if you're a fully-fledged introvert who loves working independently then you'll thrive in this style of environment.

See more of Kaity Griffin by visiting her website, kaitygriffin.com.

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