Homebased Business

Time to challenge some conventional wisdom about working from your home. Some home office experts talk about the need to keep your work life and home life strictly separate. You are told that you shouldn't get distracted by chores that need to be done around the house, and that you should tell your family that between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., you cannot be interrupted. According to these folks, when the septic system is backed up, you should tell your working spouse you are too busy preparing for next week's important client meeting to baby-sit the plumbers. Who are they kidding? The reality of the home office is that you must be available to do at least some household and personal stuff during "normal" business hours.

And not just to keep your spouse or domestic partner happy. "One of the main reasons people want to work from home is to get more control over their personal lives," says Patrick Gilligan, a Michigan-based radio and TV personality and author of Patrick Gilligan Says Be Your Own Boss. "The beauty of a home office is that you can go to the gym in the middle of the week when there are no lines for the Stairmasters; you can get your nails done on Tuesdays; you can be there for the furniture delivery guys who say they'll come to your house 'sometime between noon and 5 p.m.'"

The problem is that household chores (referred to as "honey do's" in the home office literature, even though you are doing them without any prompting from your "honey") have a way of becoming "time vampires," eating up so much of your day that your office work ends up being done evenings and weekends. How to manage your time, get everything done and still have a life?

The first step, according to Gilligan, is to cut down personal chores to an absolute minimum. "If you plan to receive a lot of registered mail or UPS deliveries in your business, get a MailBoxes Etc. account, and have everything go there. Otherwise, you will be running to the door to sign receipts every 10 minutes, to say nothing of the daily trip to your Post Office to pick up the stuff you weren't around to sign for," says Gilligan. "If the lawn is starting to look a little too much like a Nebraska wheat field in July, budget your mowing and showering time into your daily planner the same way you would a work assignment. If there are after-school programs that can keep your kids safely out of the house between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., sign 'em up." Know what your time is worth, on an hourly or daily basis, and ask "Should someone who charges $XXX an hour really be doing this?" If someone can do the job for a fraction of what you charge for your services, hire them.

Next, according to Gilligan, you've got to get really good at multitasking. "Right now, I'm doing this interview with you. I am also responding to e-mails, doing a load of laundry down in the basement and taping two TV shows."

The final step is to negotiate chore time with your family. Ask your spouse or domestic partner "I'm going to the bank this afternoon - do you need anything in that part of town?" or "I may have some down time Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon this week - is there anything I can do for you?" By letting them know the amount of time you have available on given days, you give them the opportunity to pick and choose the things they really need you to do. Don't say "I've only got time to do one household thing today"; it sounds like you think your time is more important than theirs.

One more thing: You should do one thing each day around the house to let your spouse or domestic partner know you love them. Just a small thing - like cleaning out the coffeemaker, setting the dinner table, brushing snow from the birdhouse or picking a beer can out of the gutter. Don't tell your spouse or domestic partner you did it; let them discover it on their own. Nothing says "thank you for supporting my independent lifestyle; I'm doing this for both of us" better, or more effectively.

With no boss looking over your shoulder and distractions all around you, the only way you'll succeed working at home is to master self-control. The expression "self-discipline" often leads to thoughts about the activities you have to learn not to do. For example, not overeating when the refrigerator is only a few feet away, not watching your favorite soaps all afternoon — unless you plan to work in the evening instead — and not taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon when the slump hits you and that bed starts looking mighty inviting.

Working from home also means learning to work even when you don't want to, and to do work at times that's boring, frustrating and frightening. It's a form of self-discipline I call "start discipline," which is equally essential to mastering the self-control to stop behaviors that interfere with productive work. At times you'll need to force yourself to choose work over fun, a boring task over a more satisfying one, or a sales call that frightens you over one you can make without breaking a sweat. Sometimes when that bed starts looking more tempting, it's not because you're tired, it's because you want to escape from a dreaded task.

Although we think of home as a peaceful place, free from the undesirable interruptions of corporate life, most homebased professionals will tell you the home environment is far more distracting than they expected. Telemarketers call, neighbors drop by, piles of laundry beckon, children demand attention and everywhere you look, there's something else to draw your attention away from your work. Successful work-at-homers master the art of working in short increments of time and putting blinders on when they must keep their fannies in their chair or their attention on their work.

Working from home requires an affinity for isolation. If time alone charges your batteries and leads to productive work, you'll enjoy the respite from constant interaction with people. If you're energized by frequent communication with others, you'll need to find it online with partners or employees, or by leaving the house frequently to visit clients and colleagues. Is working from home lonely or peaceful? Only you can decide.

Lastly, working from home takes courage and self-confidence. Courage to face the demons of handling rejection, living without a steady paycheck, and letting go of the familiar routine of corporate life and watercooler-easy relationships. Self-confidence to enable you to hold your head up with pride when someone asks you what you do and you reply, "I'm a self-employed xyz enjoying the lifestyle benefits of working from home." If you are reticent to "admit" you work from home, as if there were something to be ashamed of, you probably aren't well-suited for working from home.

In March, Appalachian moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, 62, received notice to report to prison to serve 18 months for illegally producing distilled spirits. Days before he was to start doing time, Sutton's body was discovered in his car, dead from an apparent suicide.

Sutton, who favored a long, unkempt beard and overalls, typified the American moonshiner. Devoted to his hobby and fiercely opposed to the law that prohibits it, Sutton produced high-proof spirits at home. Until he got caught. No state allows the distilling of spirits for recreational or commercial use without a license.

The process of making moonshine dates back to ancient times. Distillers start with a substance that contains alcohol. They put it into a vessel and heat it. Alcohol vapors form and rise into a column or coil, then condense and collect in a second vessel that's cooled, usually from the outside, with running water. The distilled liquid is volumetrically small compared to the source material. It can contain from 40% to 90% alcohol. The taste depends on the source material. Fermented peach juice tastes like peach-flavored gasoline, for instance.

Waste from beer or wine is often distilled. That's why most cultures with a history of winemaking also have a history of distilling, like the French, who make cognac, and the Italians, who make grappa. Most moonshiners start out as home wine or beer makers. That's also the source of their discontent with the law: In 1979, the federal government allowed states to permit home beer and wine making. But distilling remains illegal.

Moonshiners avoid running afoul of the law by keeping production low. They tend to cobble together their equipment themselves. It's possible to make moonshine using a teakettle with a copper coil that connects to a cooling vessel, such as a small jug. Sutton once was featured in a documentary about how to make a home still.

Distillers who want to use professional equipment can apply to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) for a license. One way around legal prohibitions is to tell the feds that you're making gasohol for your lawn mower, or that you're producing perfumes and essential oils. "It's just filling out the paperwork," says Bill Owens, the California-based founder of the American Distilling Institute. Chances are, he says, the TTB won't drop by to check.

Distilling was once very much a part of American farm life. Before Prohibition, most farmers had stills. Hobbyists tend to feel nostalgic about that earlier era of unfettered alcohol production. Ask them about why they like to make moonshine, and they are likely to launch into a lecture about the law. "The Treasury Department and the state [of Arkansas] have been after me for three or four years," says "Colonel" Vaughn Wilson, who custom-makes copper stills that start at about $900 for a 10-gallon size. Wilson has a convoluted argument about why he should remain exempt from criminal prosecution. "I get calls from investigators all the time, and they've never been able to get a warrant for my arrest," he boasts.

Wilson says he made his first still out of his mother's cookware when he was barely a teenager. (She was not thrilled.) Today, he claims, he fills three orders a week for moonshiners across the country. A few tips from Wilson: Add a little unfermented blackberry juice to blackberry wine before distillation, for extra flavor. Sweet white corn is best for whiskey because it has high amounts of fermentable sugars, yet is low in grain oils. Wilson insists that copper makes for the best stills because it's conductive and removes impurities.

One way around legal prohibitions is to find a local, licensed distiller who can demonstrate the ins and outs of the process and, for a fee, help make distilled, bottled spirits. Call it moonshine if you like, but under such an arrangement, it's perfectly legal. Keep in mind that if you choose to learn moonshining from an old hand, you will likely have to endure a few legal lectures. But that's just part of the hobby. Even if you got your instruction from legendary Popcorn Sutton, he'd have probably done the same.

Cliff Ennico. The Reality of Working From Home. Entrepreneur. July 01, 2002. Azriela Jaffe. The Homebased Entrepreneurial Psyche. Entrepreneur. July 10, 2000. Eric Arnold. Moonshine: More Than A Hobby. . June 16, 20009.

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