As a mom, managing your time can be difficult even if you don’t have an income-producing job. In the working world we can schedule meetings and organize our workday in a pretty predictable way.
But when our workday involves caring for children, predictability is often hard to come by, especially with younger kids.
"Can you please reschedule that tantrum for 3:00 tomorrow?" has never actually worked! And while your child would probably like to help you out when you say, “Mommy’s very busy, could you puke all over the floor another day,” well . . . like happens.
As a result, when as a mom you decide to take on the dual role of an entrepreneur, managing the expectations of the business world can be one of your biggest challenges.
A lot of the time management advice for entrepreneurs still reflects the now significantly outdated model of you being mom, while your partner comes home from his day job and spends four or five hours every night building his dream business on the side.
Obviously, you can’t fix dinner, care for your children, and get them in bed, and work on your business at the same time.
The First Rule of Time Management
How you manage your time in your business should be one of the first things you figure out. A major reason people needlessly give up trying to succeed at the roles of mom and business owner is the feeling of overwhelm that leads to the false belief that it can’t be done.
When figuring out how you’ll manage your time, the first rule is to be conscious of how you spend your time. No more getting to the end of the day and wondering where it’s gone.
Your entrepreneurial spirit may fight this at first, but your day is going to need to be very structured. This is a good thing though, because it’s a structure that you get to determine around the needs of your children, rather than something dictated by a heartless boss.
How to Block Your Time for Success
Step one in being conscious of how you use your time is to take a look at your day and determine when you have the longest blocks of time that you can spend uninterrupted by your kids’ needs.
This doesn’t have to be the same time every day. If your schedule isn’t very static, make it a point every Sunday to go through the upcoming week and block your time.
Ideally, you’ll have a two hour block of time to work each day. One two hour block of time is usually more effective than two, one hour blocks of time because any time you have to stop and start working you lose some of your momentum and restarting costs you a little time.
If you have two, two hour blocks of time somewhere in your day, you’re golden. One can be after the kids are in bed, and usually is in most mom’s lives.
If you don’t have four hours a day, don’t worry about it. Your business may grow a little slower, but the key is it will grow, even with just a couple hours a day working.
There can be exceptions, remember you are a mom, but for the most part your time blocks should be at least an hour so you can really get some work done.
The Key to How to Use Your Time
When you go into one of your scheduled work blocks, you have to bust out of the gate like a horse with its eye on the prized carrot.
If you have to sit around thinking about what you should be doing and making a plan, you won’t really get going until the baby wakes up or the older child walks in the door from school so hungry he might die.
Make your game plan every night before you go to bed. When that magical work hour hits, you can then attack your to do list like the woman on a mission that you are.
If you’ll work this way you’ll find two major benefits.
First, you can be at least twice as productive than you will be if you just try to squeeze in work whenever you can. Having the block of time and the laser focus are key to your productivity.
Second, it will free your mind to be more conscious of the time you do have with your children. You can be totally present with them when you are outside of one of your work blocks, instead of thinking, “Oh, I really should be returning emails right now.”
It will also help your children if they know when mom’s “work time” is and can be confident you’ll be able to turn your attentions to them when you’re finished. You’ll find their need to interrupt your time decreases significantly when they know when their time is coming.
One Last Really Helpful Mom Habit
As a mom, you likely find yourself with a lot of small chunks of time. 15 minutes between soccer games, 10 minutes in the pickup line.
Keep a notecard with you that contains a list of small tasks you need to get done. Tasks that don’t require a lot of time, concentration, or brain power. Specifically avoid these tasks during your scheduled blocks of time.
When you find that you have an extra minute, turn to your notecard and check one of those items off your list.
This habit will help you maximize your work time and get the really important stuff done, and will make you feel super productive throughout the day.
Still Looking for the Perfect Business?
At KidsPartyCharacters.com, owner Cheryl Jacobs has recently decided to help more moms with their dream to work at home. She is offering a limited number of licenses that allow you to have your own Kids Party Character business.
What do you get with a license? Everything you need.
You’ll get the exclusive right to book parties in your area, the use of all Kids Party Character costumes, access to our casting director and acting coach, and training and support on growing your business from Cheryl and the entire team at KidsPartyCharacters.com.
Having a Kids Party Characters business allows you to work as much or little as you want, is a fun and rewarding business, and is one that your kids will love to get involved in too.
Learn more about whether this could be that perfect business for you by scheduling a friendly chat with Cheryl on our website at KidsPartyCharacters.com.
And join us on Facebook to see how gratifying it is to help bring kids’ party dreams to life.
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