A Week In The Life Of An Online Entrepreneur ( Or What Time and Location Freedom Really Means!)

What do they all say when they try to sell you a course about setting up your online business?

Well, it goes something like this…

Tired of doing what your miserable boss tells you to do? Never got any time to go on luxury holidays? Want to spend more time with your family and let your soul’s purpose express itself…then you need to start an online business……

Well, I LOVE running my online business, but I think trading standards need to have a word with some of these online business coaches because, more often than not, running an online business only gives you the time and location freedom to do everything from wherever you are, at whatever time of day it is!

Now, I’m not bashing online business coaches; I love the opportunities working online gives us, and there are some incredible courses and coaches helping people get set up…but, just like everything online, there is a less shiny reality behind the glossy promises!

Take last week, for example.

Yes, I ran my online business, but mostly between 5.00 and 10.00 am and sandwiched my business commitments between leavers' balls and prize-giving ceremonies.

On top of all the leaving malarky, my son left home to start work in Australia, and once I’d stopped sobbing my heart out, all the while pretending I was just so fabulously excited for him (!), I got on with delivering the live training for my membership and prepping for round 27 of the week.

Once I’d done that, I jumped in the car and drove the length of the UK to help move my daughter out of this year's student house and into another, made multiple trips to the dump and played chicken with the parking assistants. 

Oh, and of course, I managed to fit in a swimming trip to a medieval pool used by Abbots to farm fish. 

Once I’d had my swim, I sat on a bench in the sunshine, sent a few emails, and, once I was finished,  jumped in the car to drive to Wales.

With my husband driving, I replied to two new client enquiries during the drive and spent a lovely evening eating scampi and chips on the beach next to a biker gang, with all of us listening to a brass band belting out a cover of Angels by Robbie Williams.

As you do.

Saturday, I checked on some local directory listings I’d been setting up, went for a swim and then got all dolled up for a big hoolie to celebrate my friend's 25 wedding anniversary. It was fantastic, but suffice it to say, my husband drove back, and I didn’t do any work!

So, yes, I can run my business from anywhere. I can spend more time with my family, but for me last week, that translated into pushing rubbish to the bins in the pouring rain with two of my kids, checking emails on the beach and driving over 1000 miles, all trying to make it look like I had it all under control!

Having this freedom is fantastic, but I sometimes think wistfully of my days in corporate when you walked out of the office, and that was you done for the day!

Would I swap it?

No.

But I do think I need to turn my out-of-office on a little more often as trying to find a signal to check my emails from the side of a medieval fish pond is one of the more challenging places I’ve tried to run my business from.

But how about you? 

Where has all the time and location freedom given you the “chance” to work from?

I’d love to know!