Hi, My name is ‘insert your name here’ and I’m an Info product addict

We’ve all done it.  Bought great info products – ebooks, audios, pdfs, ecourses etc – that are highly recommended and guaranteed to change our lives and send business through the roof.

We all have our favourite teachers, and if they recommend something as being great then we have to get it, right?  Because it will help us grow our business, right?  So we buy more products.  And more.  And we keep on buying.  And downloading and saving them to the hard drive.

You know that folder(s) on your hard drive that’s full of ebooks, video’s, downloads, pdf’s etc that you haven’t looked at since the day you bought them?  How do you feel when you look at that folder?  Guilty?  Upset? Overwhelmed? Waste of money?

Yeah, all of those feelings, right?  Let me tell you a secret – you’re not alone.  Really.  Many, many people have a stash of info products and have never looked at them.  I’m not going to tell you how much I’ve paid over the years for courses that I’ve never started, let alone finished.  And hopefully my hubby won’t ask either….  I used to be as guilty as anyone else on this one.

There ain’t no magic bullet

People buy information products in the hope that ‘this one’ will be the magic bullet that rockets them to instant stardom, money and orders pouring in, clients on waiting lists, kudos on the ‘net.  And it doesn’t happen.

No product is going to do this for your business.  None.  Not any.  Because all those info products, they’re just tools.  You have to use them, and use them in the right way.

So why buy information products?

Because they’re useful and will really help you grow your business.  If you use them properly.  The problem is that people often don’t use them properly, if at all.  They download them, save them, and plan to get to them soon.  Unfortunately ‘soon’ never arrives, the novelty fades and the lonely product sits there unused.

So you get stuck into them and start reading

Learning is good, yes?  The more you learn the better you’ll be at running your business, yes?  Sorry, but the answer to that is often a no.

Too much information is nearly as bad as no information.  When you do decide to get stuck in and work through the courses and ebooks you end up with a head full of ideas and no place to start.

Information overload is very real and paralysing.  When you’ve got a head full of ideas all bouncing around, and more information being packed in on top, it’s like being in a room crammed full of people all talking at the top of their voices.

Step outside with me

It’s time to get out of the room.

Turn off the noise.

Focus on just one thing.

Realise there is no magic bullet.

The answer to information overload is…

Taking action.

Give your mind a break – chances are that you’ve already read enough ebooks and know what you need to know.  See, we get so caught up in ‘learning’ that we stop ‘doing’.  We think we have to do things perfectly, and know everything about it, before we can start.

It’s true that we do need to have a certain level of knowledge in order to run a business.  It becomes a problem when we think that we have to know everything in order to run a business.

Focus on one thing and put it into action

So here you are – you’ve got a stack of info products, all useful, all highly recommended, and I’ve just told you to stop reading them. Here’s what you need to do to break out of the information overload and get your head right.

Firstly do a brain dump.  Every idea, every thought about your business, get it out of your head.  Write down the ideas.  Paper or on the computer, doesn’t matter.  Mind map if it helps.  Just get them out of your head.  Then save it somewhere so you can find it later.

Back to the information products.

Pick one.  Just one.  And work through it – do all the exercises or worksheets as you go.  Apply every technique in it to your business.  Set aside an hour a day to do this.  It’s not a race, take your time.

When you’re finished with the first info product, take a break for a couple of days.  Then pick another one and work through it the same way.  Every exercise, every technique.  Rinse and repeat.

Still don’t know where to start?

If you really can’t pick just one info product or you don’t know what you’re trying to do, I recommend starting with our Quick’n’Dirty Business Plan ebook.

Writing out a business plan will give clarity and direction – and from there you’ll have a better idea of what you need to do for your business.

Leave a comment and tell me what you decide to work on and how you’re going, ok?

Today’s post is reprinted with permission from Psychotactics by Sean D’Souza.  This particular article is one I keep coming back to, otherwise I’d be rewriting, re-recording and editing for ever.  Enjoy!

The 70% Principle

Have you got eleven seconds to learn a simple principle? A principle that will radically change the way you do things?

You do, don’t you?
Ok, tick, tick, tick….here’s the principle.

It’s called..um…the 70% Principle

So what’s the 70% Principle?

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right.
You can always come back to do the 20% later.

Yes, read it again, and no, the math isn’t wrong.

If you’re going to build a website, a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to do a presentation a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to bake a cake, for that matter…do you need all the ingredients?

The perfect cake? With all the perfecto ingredients? Or the cake with ’70%’ of the ingredients?

The ‘perfect’ wording on a website? Or the ’70% perfect’ wording on the website?

And nope this isn’t a case for mediocrity

No one is telling you to do crappy stuff. No one’s saying that you need to keep your project unfinished. But in the quest for perfection, most of us never start.

The 70% principle is about getting your best effort out and into the hands of your clients. That you don’t need to start off with a 100%-kaboom-wow-start.

So let’s tell you about our ‘who pushed me?’ start in 2002

We started Psychotactics,in the year 2002, with a 16 page booklet. We called it the ‘Brain Audit.’ And indeedy-doo, it started with just 16 pages. Those 16 pages, we cheekily sold for $20 or thereabouts.

And you know what?

We weren’t trying to keep the pages down to 16 pages, but we certainly weren’t trying to pad up the contents of the book either.

The 16 pages of information were all we knew at the time. And yes, we could have made it 100% perfect, but decided to put our 70% effort out anyyay.

Did I say, put it out? I meant, I got ‘pushed’

You see, I wasn’t keen to sell the Brain Audit. I wanted to get the e-book just right. But I was forced into putting it on the market.

I was forced to putting it on a sales page, by another marketer who promised to promote the book to his audience.

And he never did promote the book

I reminded him. Gently. Then became a bit of a nag. But that promotion never, ever happened. What did happen was that the ‘Brain Audit’ began to sell.

And as it turned out, I was able to add the next 20%,
and the next 20%, and the next 20%.

And yes, the math still adds up

Because all along, that ‘so-called incomplete’ product was selling. And when you think about it, which product or service of yours is ever complete?

As your knowledge grows; as your customers ask more questions; as you apply the concepts in different ways, your product or service gets better all the time.

And today, the Brain Audit is a comprehensive document that not only helps you understand how the customer thinks, but is also the basis for being a member of 5000bc; for doing any of our courses like the copywriting course, product-creation course.

What started out as a ‘who pushed me?’ product, now helps us get thousands of customers. And helps us grow our business considerably from year to year.

Kinda like the iPod, you see

When the iPod came out at first, it was just 10GB (yeah, pathetic ten gigs).

Then it went up to 30GB. And hey, we got video too. Then whoopsy-doo, it was 60GB. And uppity up it keeps going, both in size, features and ease of use.

Where’s the market for the perfect iPod?

There’s no market for the perfect product or service. The product or service that your customers want, is the product or service you have now.

That 70%-perfect product/service, will do fine for your customer.

How can I be so sure?

Could this article have been at least 30% better?
Couldn’t I have found more examples? More case-studies? Put in more details, perhaps? Tweaked my words just so to make it richer, more vibrant?

Sure I could. But you’ve got the point, right?

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right. You can always fix the 20% later.

©2001-2010 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Sean D’Souza.
Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas. Find simple, yet electrifying ideas,on website strategy, marketing strategies, copywriting, public speaking, article marketing, sales conversion, psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time; obviously I’m a slow learner because the benefits of slowing down have been pointed out to me time and time again. I even wrote a post that touched on this earlier this year. So what is it that I’m struggling with? It’s the fact that when I slow down I get more done yet so often I fail to remember this and keep pushing to work longer and harder.

How does slowing down help you work better?

Not only am I more productive when I slow down – I finish my work faster – I’m also a lot more creative. You see, creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There needs to be life and activity to spark inspiration and creativity. However at the other end of the scale creativity doesn’t happen when your head is full of ideas, thoughts, things to do and remember, all bouncing around together and crammed in, overloaded.

You need to take time out for thinking, allow time for your thoughts to marinate, develop and mature. Your subconscious mind works in the background, constantly. However when you try and cram too many ideas in then it has to keep working on new ideas before the previous ideas are fully explored.

Allowing your subconscious to work effectively

British psychologist and author Guy Claxton wrote in his book “Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less” that most of our everyday intelligence “belongs not to the screen of consciousness but to the invisible ‘motherboard’ behind it”. He talks about giving our brains time to pause, for our subconscious to ‘connect the dots’ and bring good, workable ideas to wholeness and fruition.

How often have you been doing something such as walking, housework, listening to music and you’ve suddenly had a brilliant ‘Aha!’ moment? An idea that bursts full-bodied into your mind? Inspiration that initiates an outpouring of a full-grown plan for growth, or the answer to a troubling problem?

That’s your subconscious at work, doing what it does best. Your subconscious loves structure and a dependable routing. It’s at it’s most creative when it knows when to work and on what.

Scheduling inspiration

The famous playwright and novelist Somerset Maughan said “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp”. His habit of sitting down to write at 9.00am every morning allowed his subconscious to prepare and be ready to produce ideas as soon as he sat. Do you do the same?

How many of us scorn routine as being a straitjacket that reduces creativity? How often do you brush off suggestions of writing out plans and ideas because it will take away the ‘inspiration’? What if these things actually enabled you to get more done and come up with better ideas? What then?

Take the Challenge…  I dare you!

Here’s a challenge for you, should you choose to accept it (and I hope you will). Pick something you’ve been thinking about doing or developing lately but have felt stuck on. Write it down, and then write down any suggestions, comments or anything relevant to it that you may have thought of. Then leave it. Give it a few hours and go for a walk. Take some time over the next day or two to slow down, smell the roses, walk in the rain (if you’re lucky enough to have some) and just take time to allow your brain to slow down.

Keep jotting down any ideas that come to you. Schedule a time to come back to your idea and work on it. When that time comes, take out your paper or computer doc and see what comes out for that idea that you wrote down.

And let me know how you go with it.

I feel so alone

At some point, pretty much every single one of my coaching client says “I feel so alone”. This aloneness, this isolation, takes a few different forms but comes down to two different causes:

You’re trying to run your business all by yourself;

You alone.

You have no one to bounce ideas off and synergise with.

Brainstorming isn’t effective when it’s just you.

You’re trying to do every single task yourself, from your core business that only you can do to your bookkeeping to your filing. Every single task.

It’s easy to get stuck in a business problem and be unable to get your head around a solution

Or

You’re not looking after yourself

You’re always working, not taking time off for your kids or partner. You know you should, but there’s so much work to be done!

You’re a single parent, which means you’re mum, dad, breadwinner, business owner, everything. The last person you have time to look after is yourself.

You’re trying to look after young children and run a business at the same time. This is why you started a home based business, right? So you could be home and look after the kids and still contribute to the family budget.

Feeling guilty about taking time off when you ‘should’ be working. There’s work to be done, and you’re the one who has to do it. How can you take a break when you can see what you need to be doing?

When you’re trying to run your business all by yourself

If you’re in the first group then the solution is relatively easy. Do any or all of the following:

Get a Business Coach.

Join a Coaching Group.

Find an online Business forum, such as Business Mums Network.

Look for someone in your industry who is willing to mentor you.

Hire a real life assistant or a VA.

Take a break to clear your head.

Become part of an online group of work at home mums, such as Mom Entrepreneurs on google groups.

When you’re not looking after yourself

Getting out from the thought patterns of the second group can be a little harder, because the best answer is to get out of the house and around other people. That takes time and effort, also it’s time away from your business.  And it’s the best thing you can do for yourself.

Where do you find the time? Something has to give, and it’s better if it’s some part of your business rather than your sanity or family. So, decide what HAS to be done by you and do it.

Streamline everything you can.

Outsource where possible.

Look for faster ways to do things.

Become more organised and streamlined in your working.

‘Batch’ your work – do emails twice a day, paperwork once a day/week, group like tasks together.

But doesn’t that take time to set up?

Yes, all of this takes time initially. You have to invest that time in order to free up time. Any task we do will expand to fill the time we have. If you have only one hour to do something that normally takes two, then you’re likely to work your butt off and get it done – in one hour.

Give yourself time off and hold that time sacred. Take time out for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a day at the spa, it doesn’t have to cost anything in money. Go for a walk or a bike ride. Leave the kids with your partner or a babysitter for a couple of hours. Bake cookies and catch up with girlfriends at someone’s house.

Make a connection

As human beings we’re designed for connectedness. We were never intended to live and work in isolation, our psyches aren’t designed to work best alone. No matter what some people will say, we ALL work better when we’re connected to others, be that on a business or personal level.

As women especially, we’re designed to congregate and socialise. Whether that’s talking with other mums about your business or your child’s latest toilet training accident, we all need and crave that connection. Denying that need starves you of emotional oxygen and slows you down.

Go out. Make a connection. Grow. Work well and profitably.

Well, it’s been school holidays here. We spent a week at the in-laws down in Victoria and the rest of the holidays staying at home. The kidlet and I spent a lot of our time doing ‘girl stuff’, cooking, sewing and really enjoying each others company.

In the middle of our visit to the in-laws I spoke at the Business Mums Network Pampering day. It was a really great day and kudos to Melissa for organising it. The talks will be available soon in downloadable and/or CD format, along with the notes.

Recently I discovered two fantastic tools that I’m loving using.

Timedriver

For quite a while now I’ve been looking for an online appointment maker that could work with different time zones and I finally found Timedriver – it does everything I wanted and at a lower price than I expected. How awesome is that?

The way it works is this: I enter in days and times that I’m available to take appointments, in my own local time. Each ‘appointment book’ is for a different type of appointment – I currently have set up appointment books for 45 minute coaching sessions, 15 minute Laser coaching sessions and 15 minutes quick consult timings.

When a client needs to book an appointment with me I send them the link to the appropriate appointment book. When they open the link, Timedriver detects their default time zone from their computer and so they see the available appointments based on their own local time zone.

Timedriver sends both the client and myself an email when an appointment has been booked and also syncs with my Outlook calendar to book them in. You have no idea how excited I was to find Timedriver. And the best part is that after the free 90 day trial it costs less than US$30 per year!

Dropbox

Dropbox was shown to me by Sean of Psychotactics when I took on managing a project for him. It’s a way to share files with other people without having to email them.

You download the Dropbox application and install it on your desktop. Anything you want to share you save to a folder inside dropbox.

To share a folder with someone you got to the online application and send the person an email invitation to the folder. That person can only see folders that they’ve been invited to – they can’t see anything else in your dropbox.

The other person can then add files to the folder, change and save files, all from their desktop. The first two Gb are free. Great for storing small backups, sharing files, photo’s and audio/video, working with your VA etc.

We’ve recently looked at Why we systemise our business, and How to write systems. Today we’re going to look at systemising your emails.

Firstly lets be clear on one point. You’ll never be able to pass off all emails to your VA and never deal with emails yourself again. No matter how much of a Tim Ferriss fan you are, it’s just not going to happen. Think about it, if you email me with a question about your business and Coaching, do you want it answered by a VA or would you like a personal answer?

What you can do is systemise and create templates for the most common questions that you’re emailed about, and delegate those. A PA/VA can be a great help in sorting emails, dealing with the run of the mill one’s, and freeing you up to deal with only those that require your personal attention.

What can you delegate? Questions that get asked regularly, invoices, payments and other accounting emails, quotes for work if you have ‘package’ options, stock ordering and supply, appointments, requests for non-personal information, the list goes on.

What should you deal with? Anything that is a one-off email, any complaints, requests for interviews, anything that requires a personal touch.

Why create templates for email? How often do you have to answer questions via email? If you’re having to rewrite the same answer to the same question each time then you need templates. Think about the questions that you’re asked. How many of them are similar enough that you can use a template or script to answer them? How much time will you save when you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and rewrite the emails every time?

So, the How. Where do you start? If you’re like 99.9% of Business Owners you already have the makings of email templates and scripts in your email client. Look through you sent emails, emails to clients, suppliers, contacts from your website etc.

Group all the questions you’ve been asked into like topics and use the emails you’ve written previously to create a standard template answer. Write the templates in word docs, and save them using the question as the file name.

Group the docs into folders based on what they refer to, such as ‘Quotes’, ‘Ordering’, Wholesalers’, etc. This makes it easy to find the doc again when you need.

Next time you receive an email asking for information, you simply go to the appropriate folder, copy and paste the template into an email. Check that it answers the question properly and send it off.

If you have a PA, VA or Admin Asst, they can more than pay for themselves by filtering your business email. They can deal with the standard emails that the templates work with, and anything that doesn’t have a template is sent off to you for answering.

What do you think? How could this work in your business? What questions are asked repeatedly?

Last week we looked at Why we Need Systems in our business, even in our micro business where there’s only one person doing everything. Today we’re going to look at How and Where to start building those systems.

It starts with you. You’re the boss. Your job is to plan for expansion, and this is the first step (after your business plan). McDonalds systems enable 16 year old kids to run a busy restaurant. Your systems will enable you to work more efficiently, to identify hiccups and roadblocks in your business and to get people to help you when you need it.

So where do you start?

The easiest way to start is to write down every hat you wear within your business – Receptionist, Bookkeeper, Manufacturer, Copywriter, Supplies, Order Fulfilment, etc.

Under each heading then write a list of the tasks that position is responsible for – yes, even when it’s just you doing it all. Note that here you’re writing each task, not each step of the task.

Eg: Receptionist – answers the telephone, makes bookings, filing, taking orders.

Once you have each task, draw a flowchart for that task detailing each step from start to finish. This is where some shortcuts come in – skip the basic tasks. When it’s just you, then you don’t need a manual to answer the phone.

You do need a written down system for anything that you can envision yourself delegating at any time in the future. Usually, this will include tasks such as packing and posting orders, bookkeeping and emails (we’ll cover emails in a future post).

Write down your systems in a way that is so simple and basic that you could pull a teenager in off the street and ask them to follow it. That’s a really good test of a system by the way, if you can hand it to a person who’s never done the task before and they can follow it then it works. If they get hung up on any part of it and begin asking questions then you need to add in more detail.

When you’re satisfied that it’s written in detail and is easily understandable save an electronic copy in a special folder labelled “Systems” on your computer and then print out a copy. File the hard copy somewhere easily accessible – you’ll be using it regularly.

Keep working through each task until you’ve done them all, or at least the one’s with more than five steps.

The hardest part here is the actual doing. Finding the time to work through a task and write down every step, everything you do in the process. One good way to do it is to have someone observing and writing down what you do. Swap with a friend, you observe her and she can observe you.

What are Systems and why do you need them?

A system is a written down process for a particular task within your business. When collected together, the systems form the Operations Manual for your business.

Now, I can hear you saying, “Why would I need one? I work for myself/at home/sole trader.” Why? Because having up to date and easy to follow Systems keep work flowing smoothly, prevents overwhelm because you know what you’re doing and where you’re up to. They allow you bring in staff members and train them, they add value to the business when/if you ever decide to sell it and they allow you to hand over tasks to other people – such as family members – so they can help you. Systems save you time and money.

You already have systems for most tasks within your business; you just haven’t vocalised or written them down. Often the systems don’t actually work that well, because they’ve evolved over time, rather than been designed for maximum efficiency and ease of use.

- When you answer the phone, do you have a particular way of answering and a set of words that you use to answer?  That’s a system.

- Do you have a procedure for registering new clients and recording their information? That’s a system.

- Do you have a routine for packing orders, checking them and posting them out? That’s a system.

- Do you have a process for receiving, distributing and answering emails? That’s a system.

Heck, we have systems for our housework, for our kids, for gardening. We just don’t recognise them and label them as such.

How often have you looked at some work for a client and had to figure out where you were up to with it? What had already been done and what still needed to be done? What if you had a written down checklist that began with the new client and followed their work through to completion and was then filed? How much time would you save, how much more work could you take on? How much more profit could you make?

How often has someone offered to come in and help you with some aspect of your business when you were overbooked and stressed beyond belief, and you said no because it was easier to do it yourself than to teach them how to do it? What if you could hand them a folder, walk them through it once, show them where everything is that they need and then leave them to it?

Are you one of those business people who talks of getting a VA one day “but just has to catch up with my emails/bookkeeping/orders first”. Imagine how much easier it would be if you could email your VA a document that tells them exactly how you want the work handled, complete with examples and text templates.

When are you planning to bring order and structure to your business systems?

Coming up in Part 2 – How and Where to start building your business systems.

Have you got a million ideas running around your head and need to get nail them down?

Do you know what you’re doing but have so much to do that you don’t know where to start?

Have you got several projects running at the same time and need to schedule your work so they all get the attention they deserve and none are forgotten or neglected?

Are you a Visual learner and need a way to track past, present and future tasks?

If any of these sound like you, then you need a Project Board.

So…. What’s a Project Board? It’s a large piece of cardboard, butchers paper, or similar that you use to plan and track the tasks and timeline for a project. I use Excel for mine, firstly because I find it easy to sort tasks; and secondly because my handwriting is so messy it’s the only way I can read what I have to do. I have clients who hand write it on butchers paper, whatever works best for you is great.

Once you start using a Project Board you’ll never look back. My only complaint with it is that I haven’t worked out a way to put it on my phone yet – but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

A Project Board is a simple tool to get your ideas out of your head, to provide structure and a logical sequence for all the tasks involved in a particular project. It provides an at-a-glance update on how something is going, what’s been done and what still needs to be done.

If more than one person is involved in the project then it can include Who is doing What and When.

I start with listing all the tasks required for a project on an Excel spreadsheet. It’s a huge brain dump, where everything you can think of that needs to be done is written down. Larger or complicated tasks need to be broken down into the smallest possible task. Then working backwards from the completion date, I put a date for the task to be done next to each item, and who is to complete it if that’s needed.

My spreadsheet is set out with a row at the top labelling the project and the required completion date, in very large letters.

Then the columns are organised into: Date (for the task to be done), Task, Who by, and Done (or Completed).

When I’ve listed all the tasks and put dates on them I like to leave it for a few days to think about it. There’s always something that I remember later that needs to be included, or a task that I realise has to be broken down into even smaller tasks.

When I’m ready, I use the ‘Sort Data’ function on the spreadsheet to sort the tasks in ascending date order. Have a look at them and make sure that everything is in a logical order. Check to see that there isn’t a task that HAS to have something else completed first. If there is, edit the dates, add in the task if needed, and re-sort the data.

When you’re happy with it, and certain everything is included in the correct order, print it out on the largest sheet of paper you can find. Put it on your wall where you can see it easily.

From here it’s easy to start at the top and work down through the tasks. The ‘Done’ column is there to be ticked off when the task is completed.

If you’ve got more than one project on the go then I prefer to use a separate sheet for each project. If you wanted to, you could include all the tasks together, different coloured fonts for each project, and then sort them all by date. I find this hard to tell how far a single project has progressed, although I know people who use this method.

An alternative to this would be to have a master list with the tasks for all projects and a separate sheet for each project and tick them both off as tasks are completed.

When you’ve completed the project, don’t throw away your Project Board. Add a page to it, or write on the side, how well it worked, feedback you received, what you learned and what you would do differently next time. File it away somewhere safe, and next time you need to do a similar project you have it already more than half planned.

If you’ve written it on a computer as I do, you can simply add your comments to the file and save it in a particular folder for ‘Completed Projects’. You may never use it again, but if you do then you won’t have to repeat all your work and you’ll have your feedback from the first time around.

This is my way of keeping track of tasks and projects, what do you use? What works best for you?

Time management around kids… I can hear every mother who reads that laughing hysterically. Because when you’re a mother you know that time management and kids tend to be two things that don’t work all that well together. Every time you think you’ve got your time well planned, the kids manage to throw a spanner in the works and upset all your carefully made plans. And since I posted recently about how time can’t be managed, we’re going to look at how to use the time you have available around your kids.

In that post, I mentioned a few ways to plan your work so you were spending your available time on the highest priority tasks, however that post was based on the assumption that you had undisturbed time. Baby’s asleep, kids at school or pre-school, they’re in bed at night, etc. What do you do when you’ve got kids at home all day though? And by the time your kids are in bed, you’re a physical and mental wreck from dealing with them all day? That’s when you start doing your housework, yes?

I’m fortunate in that my daughter is at school all day, so I have seven and a half hours of peaceful bliss, alone at home, able to work relatively undisturbed all day. Lest you think that I have no idea what it’s like for other mums though, let me tell you that I didn’t always have it this easy. When I started my first business – bookkeeping – I was working three days a week, running a business from home, studying and single mum to a three year old. So when I was at home, so also was my daughter. Working around her taught me a lot, which I’m about to share with you.

1. Prioritise your work so you know what to work on first. As I mentioned in the previous post on Time Can’t be Managed, the most effective action you can take is to work on tasks of high importance.

2. There’s a sewing book that is titled “Five, Ten, Fifteen Minutes to Sew” and the premise is that you divide your sewing into tasks that will take that long to do. When you have five minutes, grab something from the five minute list and so on. This technique is brilliant for work at home mums. For those moments when you don’t have enough time to work on your high priority tasks, know what you need to do that will take only a few minutes. Or can be picked up for a few minutes and then put back down. Filing, writing lists, planning posts, can all be done in short spurts of time.

3. Plan your work around your child’s schedule. There’s no point attempting to work your kids around your business schedule. You’ll drive yourself crazy and end up with cranky kids. Know when your kids are most active, and when they’ll quiet down. Know what tasks you can do while they’re in the room – not high concentration tasks – so you can keep an eye on them while you work. If they’re crawlers, put them in a playpen with some special toys that don’t get used too often. Plan your work around their sleep and waking schedules.

4. Plan the time that you spend with your kids. Make the face-to-face time that you have with them valuable. If you have to go with Quality over Quantity then be sure it’s high quality time. Also, when you’re with your kids BE WITH THEM! Don’t spend your time with them distracted, thinking of work, or only half there. They deserve your time and full attention more than your business does.

5. Older kids can be involved in what you’re doing. Running a business from home is a great way to develop the entrepreneurial mindset in kids. Set them jobs and pay them for it. Shredding, simple filing, tidying, stuffing envelopes, kids from about age eight (depending on the child) are quite capable of simple tasks. Melissa from Business Mums Network has produced a AUD$5 report on Job Lists For Kids if you want to read more about this and get more great ideas.

6. Know your own natural rhythms. Night owl or early bird? Knowing when you do your best work is invaluable. Take a look at yourself over the next few days, when do you find it easiest to do the hard thinking work? When do you work best on tasks that require physical work like packing products? When do you need to do something that requires movement but not thinking such as filing? I know for myself, that hour between 6.00 and 7.00am is my best writing time. I get more done then, and better quality, than at any other time of the day.

7. Include school holidays in your business calendar. Know in advance if you’re going to send them to holiday care, have them home, or at a friends house. Schedule your own work around that, and do as much in advance as you can. Alternatively, I know a couple of work at home moms who simply take the school holidays off work. If you can afford it then this can be a great solution. I cut down my work days during the holidays, so I work less days and shorter days. Find a balance that works for you.

8. Recognise that there are going to be days that just go totally cattawumpus. The kids are sick, the washing machine floods the laundry (and hallway and bedroom – yes, really), your husband has a day off unexpectedly and wants to spend it with you, one of the pets has to go to the vet (happened here yesterday and ruined my entire day). There are going to be days when life just smacks you upside the head. If you had an office job you’d take the day off and forget about work. Just because we work at home, for some reason we try and keep on with business as usual. Give yourself permission to take the day off when you need to.

9. Turn your answering machine on to pick up calls when the kids are around. You’re a professional, it’s just that your office is at home. When the little darlings are crying, playing, or talking, you can’t hear nor concentrate well to talk to a client on the phone. And we all know how as soon as we’re on the phone the kids get louder and try to get our attention. Save your sanity and look professional at the same time. Turn on your answering machine and return calls when you’re alone.

10. Be realistic about how much time you have to work with. I’ve said it before and I have no doubt I’ll say it again many times over. Know how much time you really have to fill with work. If you don’t have enough time then something has to change. Generally work at home moms tend to give up sleeping first, or time with their partners. Both of these have very bad consequences. Sleep attrition makes everyday life so much harder to handle, and divorce is a horrible thing to go through. Your family has to come first, know how much time you have to work with and keep it in sensible perspective to your family.

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