One of the things I am learning constantly is the need to manage my time. Now with a new infant and a 5 year old at tow, the management of every bit of my time is absolutely crucial. Not to mention, I also homeschool my 5 year old, run an online business, and work along with my husband in the ministry as new pastors…how do we do it all?
Well, to be honest, we don’t…and I’ve had to learn to discover what is truly important and what isn’t.
If you’re also a work at home mom, you’ll understand how critical this element is.
Below are a few guidelines to time management for the work at home mom:
1.) See the overall picture. It’s so important with children to know that not every day is going to go as planned.
In one of my free audio courses, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan, I discuss the importance of having your details outlined for the day. Although I believe having some sort of plan is important to running your online business, when you’re a mom you have to give yourself some slack when it comes down to planning the details of your day.
Your business needs a plan, but your days need some wiggle room. You need be able to enjoy your life and make room for errors, or even just plain old unplanned fun! It may be kinda tough at first if you’re a control freak like me…but believe me, you’ll get used to it!
So, at least have an overall plan for your day. Keep a calendar or planner with potential to-do items. If you get to them, GREAT!! Give yourself a party. If you don’t, move it up a day or two. You’ll have to juggle and rearrange your schedule sometimes and that’s okay. Something unexpected will always happen with young children at home with you, and you won’t always be able to finish up your projects when you’d like.
However, when it comes down to client work, be sure to stick to your guns.
2.) Never glue yourself to deadlines. If you offer to do something for a client by a certain deadline, be sure to stick by your word.
Otherwise don’t give a deadline…oftentimes it’s best to work by ball park deadlines (ex. - “we should be finishing up by the week of, or the month of”, etc.) Just bill for the time you’ve worked, but don’t offer any specific dates. If you’re a mom of young kids you know exactly what i mean by biting off more than you can chew in business.
The contract may be drawn up, and the project sounds great…you even feel awesome about it!! But once you start working on the project, you may find that you’re in over your head. AFter all, you’ve got dishes to wash, dinner to cook, laundry to throw in the wash, kids to shuttle back and forth from activities– maybe you have elderly parents to look after, a husband to support, a church to attend, organizations to volunteer with, and perhaps a long, long list of things you want to get to in order to increase your business. Let’s face it — life gets BUSY!!! So, never overestimate your time for business projects. Be realistic. Give estimates, not specifics. Which leads me to the last point…
3.) Be true to yourself. 
What is it that you can TRULY do for your clients that you have the TIME, the ENERGY, and the PATIENCE to accomplish for them? Why are you in business? Ask yourself that pertinent question. Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate business ventures at this time in your life…or maybe you still feel that your business is important enough to keep going despite your busy life. If you’ve decided to stay in business, the be true to yourself about what you can or cannot do.
If you feel that you are unable to do certain things, perhaps it’s time to look into hiring a virtual assistant. Or maybe you should actually hire a nanny to help assist you with your children during your office hours.
I make these suggestions and have never done either of the two listed above (hire a VA or nanny)…but I know that if the day should come where I just couldn’t balance it all and needed the extra help, I would shoot for it in a second.
4.) My final business decision…how do I balance it all?
As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m a stay at home mom, and I’m running a business, an online ministry, homeschooling, and I probably didn’t mention of host of other things. I also just had a baby. So how do I manage it all?
I’ve decided that my best management tool was to decide what I DIDN’T need to manage anymore.
What I have resorted to was streamlining my business and narrowing down my specialties so that I no longer offer the services that would be too time-consuming to me at this moment in my life. I also have placed phone coaching on hold for some time until my newborn is older. I know that when I coach via phone, I need uninterrupted time with my client who has paid for the hour and it would be unprofessional of me to interrupt that time, even for family business…so either I hire a babysitter, or I don’t offer the service. That’s my take.
And at this moment of my life, it’s more important to me that I drop the service and spend the time with my children because they need me.
My way around this, though, so that I don’t drop my services altogether was to evaluate what it is I actually CAN do.
I can still offer coaching…by email. Not only is it more convenient for me, but my clients have often liked this method much better also. Receiving pages and pages of my personal coaching any time throughout the month for one low fee seemed more feasible to them financially and put less pressure on them…and less on me too! They could also print out the pages to study and ask questions, pick my brain, and pretty much count on me to be available 24/7 since I stay at my computer so often. See more info on this at http://wahmuniversity.com/coachingprograms.html
For me…this is important. On a personal note, I can nurse my baby in a sling, and help my oldest daughter with her math while working at the PC …neither of which I could do while on the phone! 
4.) Use time management tools. I use a few simple time management tools as well as a little dose of comment sense. As for basic tools, I use Microsoft Outlook for my email management. And so I don’t waste time deleting and reading through old emails, I take a quick scan of my “Unread Mail” folder of all the “from’s” and a quick scan of the subject field. If I don’t recognize who the emails are from and have a feeling they are spam, I do a quick CTRL- highlight on my keyboard to highlight all of the emails, then quickly click “delete” on my keyboard. Then I do the same for my spam and junk emails. I also read through emails from friends that I need to get back with right away. If I have the time to answer the email at the moment, I do. If not, I flag it red for important and get back to it within 3 -7 days. If it’s a client, I get back usually within 24 hours.
I also use the calendar function in Outlook and set it up to send me reminders of important dates. But as for my daily schedule, I use a good old fashioned desk planner/calendar. I like the planners that have a monthly and weekly layouts. I use the weekly layouts to write down my plan for the week day by day. This way I’m less likely to miss an important deadline, be it business or family related. I place all of my to-do items on this one calendar rather than separating my business from family functions on 2 different calendars (which I know some people do). To me, it’s just easier to include them both on the same calendar. After all, my family life and work do tend to intermingle…that’s why I’m a work at home mom!
Heard of Brian Tracy? For more ideas, tips, and suggestions on time management tools and products, check out this site: http://www.time-management-tools.com/
As for common sense strategies, If I have time for a project, I commit to it. If I don’t have time, I decline. I don’t look at the bottom line money-wise, because I’ve learned that time is more valuable than money. As much as we need money, time has more value. If you take away the time, money goes away too. If you can squeeze more time out of your 24 hours, and be a happier relaxed you as a result, then your money will flow more easily (because now you actually have the time to create wealth!)
Well, that’s all for now. Remember to enjoy your time, manage it well, and do what’s best for you and your family!
- Your Web Media Success Coach, Podcast Consultant, & Internet Marketing Strategist
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