How I manage my time as a business owner and mom of 4
Being productive as a work at home business owner with four kids underfoot.
I have been a “mompreneur” for almost 7 years now and with four kids under my belt I know just how hard it can be to look back on the day in the evening and feel like you got much of anything done.
You started a business because you craved to ability and freedom to stay at home and be the mom you want to be while still providing financial stability and freedom, and turns out that isn’t always all it’s chalked up to be.
The truth is that it’s the best and worst of both worlds, especially once your business starts to take off and your workload increases. You get the peace of mind that your child is in a safe and loving environment but your attention is now split between your business, customs and clients, housework, and your child (not to mention your own personal needs)
After doing it for so many years I have definitely learned a thing or two, and it’s something I see pop up all the time in the female entrepreneur space so I am happy to share my tips and tricks for how to manage your time as a work at home mom.
^ actual footage of me in my office as I type this.
Prioritize
Prioritizing the most important or time-sensitive tasks in the day is critical to the day to day success of my business. If I have a deadline on a project or with a client I know I need to focus my time and energy on those things FIRST. That way when I inevitably get caught up in mom duties I know I have enough time no matter what to get those ultra-important tasks done.
Deciding what those most important things are can be tricky because well it all feels important. Alternatively, it can be easy to focus on things that feel important but actually don’t move the needle in your biz.
Generally, these super important tasks fall into one of two categories.
- The service you actually provide (if you are a product based business this means product development and customer service)
- Marketing your business
Category one is obviously critical to your business’s success because if you don’t have time to actually do the thing you sell to customers then your business is not sustainable and will fail.
Category two is also essential to your business because without marketing there will be no one to provide the service or thing to.
Now marketing is a huge category and there are endless tactics to market your business but focus your efforts on where you actually see the most results on a monthly basis and prioritize that method over anything else.
For example, if 60% of your customers or clients find you through Google, prioritize your marketing efforts on blogging or Google ads vs making the 1000th Instagram Reel where you only get 300 views.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t spend energy growing and learning other platforms but if you only have 2 hours in a day to work focus on what moves the needle.
Time Blocking
Time blocking can be a really helpful way of structuring your work time and is especially helpful if you find yourself in a constant state of analysis paralysis OR if you find yourself running out of time at the end of the day to complete your to-do list.
If you get lost in the abyss of your to-do list, having a specific time slot for specific tasks will allow you to split up your time more efficiently throughout the day and keep you from getting drawn too far into certain time sucking tasks. Like “researching” reel ideas….
Some of my favorite time tracking tools that I would recommend are:
Now if you’re a mom time blocking isn’t always a one size fits all solution, you need to be extra strategic about blocking your most important tasks during times when you know you’ll have the most opportunity for focus.
Child Free Time
Now don’t panic, I’m not saying that you HAVE to put your children in childcare in order to be successful in your business BUT I would be absolutely misleading you if I didn’t talk about childfree time as an element of making it all work.
You don’t have to put your children in daycare in order to get child-free time for you to work on your business, but a sacrifice has to be made somewhere.
For me, this looks like waking up at 5:30 am for early morning work before my kids get up as well as working during nap times. I’m a total night owl so I also work in the evenings when I have a lot of client work.
I’m also fortunate enough to have a supportive partner who takes over the household duties 1-2 days a week where I get a bulk load of my weekly workload done.
If you do not have a partner who is able or willing to give you some child-free time, then look to other family members. I’m also fortunate that I have a MIL sent straight from heaven who loves to spend time with my kids and is happy to take them off my hands for an afternoon here or there.
Having a supportive partner or family members to rely on are both privileges that I realize not everyone has. If it’s not an option to have someone else in the picture then you have to jump on the 5 am and naptime train.
If financially its an option to hire childcare but you’re feeling conflicted about it, I’m giving you the green light to do what you’ve got to do! The beauty of working on your own terms means that you are not shackled to any kind of schedule that you don’t want. If you only need childcare one day a week that’s now an option for you! Half days, part time, nannies etc, are now all possibilities for you.
Don’t Fight The Flow
Hand in hand with child-free work time is working with kids underfoot. Maybe you started this journey with the dream of your kids sitting peacefully on your lap while you typed away at your computer or with a bassinet by your side in your beautifully decorated office.
What a reality check you’ve had! You will learn pretty quickly that it’s a lot less peaceful than you imagined. It’s so incredibly difficult to switch your brain from CEO mode to mom mode and then back again 20x a day.
You have to accept that some days just aren’t going to be productive.
Read that again ^
One more time!
Motherhood has to come first always, and honestly, that can be really hard to accept when you are ambitious and your day-to-day life starts to feel like it’s full of roadblocks. But, when you try to be CEO and mom of the year all in the same hour you’re dooming yourself to feel like a failure in both arenas.
Running a business and being a nurturing patient mother use two totally different parts of your brain. It’s kind of like if you tried to drive a car and paint a picture at the same time. They both require a lot of focus and intention but totally different skill sets.
You have to know when to stop. This is harder than it sounds if you are a bit of a workaholic but you have to recognize when your kids are having the kind of day where they need a lot of attention you just have to stop fighting the flow and close the laptop. There should be a limit on how many times you tell your kids “in a minute” or “I’m busy right now” before you say okay I’m done for now.
I don’t want to scare you into thinking it’s not possible because it is. But you have to know when to stop in the middle of work to kiss boo-boos and play hide and seek or help with homework etc.
Save the most mentally or physically challenging parts of your business for childfree time and easy “auto-pilot” type tasks for when your kids are having a dance party in your office.
This will save you so much headache and I hate to admit it took me a solid 3 years to really figure out and I’m still improving on this balance all the time.
Come up with a list of really low energy things to do in your business that don’t really require a ton of creative or mental energy and save those for times when you’re sitting outside with your kids, going on a walk, sitting with Bluey on in the background, etc.
My list looks a little like this:
- Check/reply to emails
- Engage with potential clients on social media
- Hit post on a drafted piece of content
- Organize files
- Clean my office
- Bookkeeping
- Answering questions in FB groups
Things I know I can’t do with my kids under my feet:
- Meetings with clients
- Education (courses etc)
- Design
- Create video content
- Troubleshoot tech problems
- Any kind of legal paperwork
Your lists will look a little different based on your industry what you find comes easily and what feels stressful or needs your full attention.
Templatize & Automate
If you’re anything like me you feel like you have about 0 seconds to spare at the end of the day (at least without going insane) so save precious time by templatizing and automating repeating tasks in your business.
This is a little bit of a catch 22 because setting up these systems and templates can take a lot of time to create and implement but once they’re done, they’re done.
Better yet!? You can hand off these SOPs and templates to anyone who joins your team and you now have an easy and efficient way to scale and grow your company.
Things you can automate or templatize:
- Email sequences
- Lead Generation
- Social Media
- Onboarding/Offboarding
There Is No One Size Fits All
What works for me may not be what works for you. As if being a business owner wasn’t hard enough on its own, trying to juggle raising small children at the same time makes it even harder to maintain consistency and find the time and energy that’s needed to grow.
It’s SO important that you take it easy on yourself, don’t be too harsh on yourself when things don’t go as planned, and remember that consistency and plain ol’ refusing to give up is the real key to finding success with your business.
I’m rooting for you! From one hustler mom to another, you’ve totally got this!
