Continue reading »]]>

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.

.

Continue reading »]]>

Following on from Friday’s post on dealing with overwhelm, today we’re going to look at how you use your time. You see, Time cannot be managed, it can only be used.

Time is not alive, it does not act or react, feel emotions or breathe. Time simply is. It continues at the same rate for every person in the world, day after day. Although it can feel as though it does, time never speeds up or slows down. Time cannot be managed, it can only be used.

When we make the best use of our time, that’s when we say we are managing time well; however, the truth is that we’re actually managing ourselves.

So, you’re a mum. A wife. A business owner. You serve on committees, go to night school, worship at church, take time with friends, have hobbies and passions to follow, kids to look after, a house to keep presentable, friends and family to keep up with. How do you do everything and still run a business?

Remember the four D’s from last week? Do, Delay, Delegate or Drop? Before you can get to the 4D’s you need to take a good hard look at how much time you have.

I recently answered a question on a forum, where Christie, from Childhood 101, asked “I am just wondering how much time other blogging Mums put into managing their own blogs, reading and commenting on other blogs and social networking each day? I struggle to get maybe an hour during rest time and everything else is at night, so then poor DH misses out on us time and I have less time to read, knit, etc.”

Paraphrased, this was my answer:

“You need to look at how much time you have available and plan around that. All those activities I mentioned that I do {Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blog commenting} are marketing or marketing related. You don’t have to do them all the time. While blogging is marketing, it’s generally not what gets you clients – believe it or not.

You’ll need to be very organised, and know exactly what you need to do. When your time is limited then business planning becomes even more important. Don’t waste any time on “Gee, I have 15 minutes, what should I do?” because you’ll do what’s fun and not what’s important.”

The first thing you need to look at is how much time you have available. Christie says she has around an hour during rest time. That’s only about five to seven hours a week, plus what she can find when her baby is in bed of an evening. My daughter is in school, so I have a lot more time available during the day, however because I’m at school two evenings a week I don’t get a lot of night time work done. Realistically, how much time do you have available on a regular basis?

Filling that time. When you’re starting out, a good rule of thumb, no matter how much time you have available, is to spend 80% of your time Marketing and 20% of your time on other work. Marketing is more important than blogging, than tweaking your website (unless that is the marketing), than anything else. Marketing will get you sales.

Plan your work so you’re working on the most important tasks first. I like to list my tasks under three headings;

i) Essential – these are the things that directly make me money. Marketing and product development mainly.

ii) Very Useful – tasks such as blogging. The things that help spread the word about your business, indirectly related to sales, readers and subscribers.

iii) Nice to Have – If I get time I’ll do with these tasks. Facebook comes under here (for me, because I don’t really use FB as a marketing tool right now). Checking the website for spelling errors. Looking for new forums to post on.

All your tasks should be planned out, so you know exactly what you need to be doing when. As I said to Christie on the forum, don’t waste your time wondering what to do. You should know what’s next. What is important today. What do I need to be working on now.

The other point I want to make here is tied in with prioritising and dropping tasks. Christie mentioned that she likes to read and knit in the evenings. The time is likely to come, as she transitions into becoming a work at home mom, that she’ll need to drop these. Her business will need to be a higher priority temporarily. There are always going to be times where your business requires every bit of time you can find and almost everything else has to take a backseat.

There’s nothing wrong with this on a temporary basis. (If it continues permanently then you need to look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Contact me, I can help you!) However many business owners, particularly work at home moms, are unprepared for their business to take over their lives like this. It’s actually a fairly normal part of business, particularly in the early stages. The majority of work at home moms go through this. It can last for a week, or a month or two.

Be organised. Plan well in the beginning and you will get through it. Know what you need to do, know what your highest priority is. Use your time well.

Continue reading »]]>

Following on from Friday’s post on dealing with overwhelm, today we’re going to look at how you use your time. You see, Time cannot be managed, it can only be used.

Time is not alive, it does not act or react, feel emotions or breathe. Time simply is. It continues at the same rate for every person in the world, day after day. Although it can feel as though it does, time never speeds up or slows down. Time cannot be managed, it can only be used.

When we make the best use of our time, that’s when we say we are managing time well; however, the truth is that we’re actually managing ourselves.

So, you’re a mum. A wife. A business owner. You serve on committees, go to night school, worship at church, take time with friends, have hobbies and passions to follow, kids to look after, a house to keep presentable, friends and family to keep up with. How do you do everything and still run a business?

Remember the four D’s from last week? Do, Delay, Delegate or Drop? Before you can get to the 4D’s you need to take a good hard look at how much time you have.

I recently answered a question on a forum, where Christie, from Childhood 101, asked “I am just wondering how much time other blogging Mums put into managing their own blogs, reading and commenting on other blogs and social networking each day? I struggle to get maybe an hour during rest time and everything else is at night, so then poor DH misses out on us time and I have less time to read, knit, etc.”

Paraphrased, this was my answer:

“You need to look at how much time you have available and plan around that. All those activities I mentioned that I do {Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blog commenting} are marketing or marketing related. You don’t have to do them all the time. While blogging is marketing, it’s generally not what gets you clients – believe it or not.

You’ll need to be very organised, and know exactly what you need to do. When your time is limited then business planning becomes even more important. Don’t waste any time on “Gee, I have 15 minutes, what should I do?” because you’ll do what’s fun and not what’s important.”

The first thing you need to look at is how much time you have available. Christie says she has around an hour during rest time. That’s only about five to seven hours a week, plus what she can find when her baby is in bed of an evening. My daughter is in school, so I have a lot more time available during the day, however because I’m at school two evenings a week I don’t get a lot of night time work done. Realistically, how much time do you have available on a regular basis?

Filling that time. When you’re starting out, a good rule of thumb, no matter how much time you have available, is to spend 80% of your time Marketing and 20% of your time on other work. Marketing is more important than blogging, than tweaking your website (unless that is the marketing), than anything else. Marketing will get you sales.

Plan your work so you’re working on the most important tasks first. I like to list my tasks under three headings;

i) Essential – these are the things that directly make me money. Marketing and product development mainly.

ii) Very Useful – tasks such as blogging. The things that help spread the word about your business, indirectly related to sales, readers and subscribers.

iii) Nice to Have – If I get time I’ll do with these tasks. Facebook comes under here (for me, because I don’t really use FB as a marketing tool right now). Checking the website for spelling errors. Looking for new forums to post on.

All your tasks should be planned out, so you know exactly what you need to be doing when. As I said to Christie on the forum, don’t waste your time wondering what to do. You should know what’s next. What is important today. What do I need to be working on now.

The other point I want to make here is tied in with prioritising and dropping tasks. Christie mentioned that she likes to read and knit in the evenings. The time is likely to come, as she transitions into becoming a work at home mom, that she’ll need to drop these. Her business will need to be a higher priority temporarily. There are always going to be times where your business requires every bit of time you can find and almost everything else has to take a backseat.

There’s nothing wrong with this on a temporary basis. (If it continues permanently then you need to look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Contact me, I can help you!) However many business owners, particularly work at home moms, are unprepared for their business to take over their lives like this. It’s actually a fairly normal part of business, particularly in the early stages. The majority of work at home moms go through this. It can last for a week, or a month or two.

Be organised. Plan well in the beginning and you will get through it. Know what you need to do, know what your highest priority is. Use your time well.