2:44p.m. 28th September 2007

| By Sharon Luck

Queensland’s entrepreneur of the year Yvette Adams works from home with her baby Matisse Leavy close by much of the time. Photo: Nicholas Falconer/168492

Working from home is simply the best way to balance work and caring for children while maintaining some sanity according to Yvette Adams, mother of two and newly-named winner of the Queensland Small Business Awards young entrepreneur of the year title.

And while she might work from a desk in the family room of the home she shares with her family business is booming.

Starting in November last year Yvette has established a business that provides creative services for clients across a broad range of areas. Just last weekend she was named as Queensland’s young entrepreneur of the year, but in the past year she’s also been a finalist in the Australian Home Based business awards and the Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network awards.

She knows there’s more to life than just work – her time is also spent looking after three-year-old Rio and Matisse who is just eight months old.

She admits that making it work is a juggling act but Yvette believes that working from home is what makes it possible to achieve it all.

Yvette says success is all about planning and being organised.

“I run a contract model so while I have no employees I do have people regularly working for me and they might be here at my place or wherever they are located –either elsewhere on the Coast, Melbourne or New Zealand.

“I do a lot of work at night and although I only work about 20 hours a week I earn more money than I ever have before,” Yvette said.

Her energetic son Rio is in day care four days a week and both sets of grandparents live on the Sunshine Coast and help care for Matisse if meetings or deadlines require it.

And one day a week Yvette avoids all work to spend dedicated time with them, a day she calls “mummy day”.

Her tips for achieving a good balance are:

Don’t be afraid to use the answering machine.

“People are happy to leave a message if they know you will get back to them. I always aim to get back to people within 48 hours.

Templates save time.

“By creating templates for regular email messages or documents you can save a lot of time by not having to start everything from scratch,” she said.

File management is essential even for the home based operator.

“Good filing systems ensure easy access and retrieval which saves time. Streamlining processes and being creative with staffing is vital.

Do “like” tasks at once.

Yvette recommends breaking jobs up into groups.

For example she returns bunches of phone calls in one session or checks and responds to emails in one session.

“And use Microsoft Outlook Express to its full capacity with tasks, journal entries, contract management and reminders – it will save you time,” she said.

Procedure manuals for staff.

“If you have procedure manuals you can be creative with staffing. I have work experience students and mums, who also work from home, working for me and because of the manuals they know what’s required even if I’m not there.

The home based operation is working so successfully for this young mum that she’s not sure she would ever expand her business to a point where she would have to leave the comforts of home.

“I’m happy with how things are at the moment, but perhaps when the kids are little older I’ll consider getting commercial premises,” she said.

“I love the fact that now, if I want, I can switch off all the phones and go to the beach and make up for it at night once the kids are in bed.

“Statistics show that only 30% of mothers don’t work at all now due to necessity and or desire, but I think many more would love to work from home around their kids if they could.

“I hope people see through me that it is possible to ‘have your cake and eat it too, it’s just a matter of good planning and dedication and keeping a firm eye on balance,” she said.