The biggest question I get again and again and again, no matter what I’m teaching on, is “How do you find time to run your business with a little on running around”. I actually have grown to love this question because it makes me laugh. I love this question because there are days I wonder myself how I even manage to do it all. The mom life, the mompreneur life, the homeschool life, the mom who cleans house, the mom who runs errands… you get the idea.
But how do I “mompreneur” while the tiny human is running around because, let’s be honest, I’m not sitting down at my computer for 8 hours to get it done. As a Stay At Home Mom I truly can’t just “sit down” and knock out work in bulk. While I do personally wake up before my family to get uninterrupted hours I normally work using a few different tactics.
5 Steps To “Working As a Mompreneur”
1. Get Into The Right Mindset- Being a momprenuer is ridiculously hard some days. There are all sorts of doubts that want to creep in, you wonder if you’re spending too much time with your work/kids/house chores/not enough time for yourself/etc. In order to successfully run a business as a mompreneur our you MUST KNOW that you have the ability to do it all and successfully. You’ll spend a good portion of the begining of your busienss wondering if you are even “meant to do this”. Having the right Mompreneur Mindset, which to be honest is a totally different than a traditional entrepreneurs mindset, can mean the difference between you succeeding and you giving up at some point in your journey. <– I don’t want to see the later happen so let’s get you in the RIGHT Mompreneur Mindset!
2. Work From A List- To-Do Lists are a MUST! If you want tips on how to manage your to-do list check out the #MommiesOnAMission Resource Library! You are stopping and starting and stopping and starting all day long. You know you are, just look at the sink with dishes you started an hour ago ;-). Without a to-do list for your work how do you know where you left off? You don’t! When you get that moment to sit down and knock out a bit of work you need to know EXACTLY what it is you need to be doing in that moment so that you can use that minute of time wisely. Create a list of items that you need to achieve and when you sit down to work start knocking them out one by one.
3. Work In Pockets of Time- Let’s be honest, unless you have a nanny/full time child care/your kids are in school all day you simply don’t have hours at a time to get work done. I laughingly say all the time “I run my business in twenty minute to an hour chunks of time” and it’s true most days. When the kiddo has independent reading time I’ll sneak a peek at my e-mails, when he’s doing a solo coloring project I’ll reply to a client, when he’s eating his lunch I’ll send out an e-mail to my list. Never do I take my 100% attention away from my kiddo when we are meant to be engaging or when he needs me to be 100% present, but in those down moments I’m knocking out things on my to-do list left and right. I know, in my mind, that when work is done things run smoothly in the house. But I also know that I need to be 100% there for my kiddo because he will only be small once and I need to enjoy these moments. Pockets Of Time for work. Twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there, they all add up. If you find that you have time to “scroll” you have time to build a business!
4. Make Adjustments When Necessary- Make adjustments in you daily routine in order to grant yourself more time for work. What I mean is, instead of doing the dishes 4-5 times a day let the few dishes sit until after the next meal. They aren’t going to grow legs and run away in the span of a few hours and that’s 15-20 minutes of time you could be using to share your value with the world. Don’t do laundry EVERY day, set days where you will do laundry so that you can free up time throughout your day. Being able to find time is just that, it’s about finding time in your day. It’s about making adjustment to how you currently go about your day in order to make your dreams a reality. You must find moments of unused time during your day and dedicate them to your business if you want to further yourself.
5. Get up before/Stay Up After The Tiny Humans- This one is one where I hear a lot of mompreneurs making excuses about. “Well I can’t get up before the kids because …..””I can’t stay up after they’ve gone to bed because….” They’re tired, it’s too early, they don’t want to wake them, they have things that need to be done and they need their rest… you get the idea. This is an area where there are a LOT of excuses. But when you make excuses you set your own progress on the shelf. I’ll be honest, I HATE getting up early. I’m the type of person who would sleep until 10 am if you’d let me. That’s not happening with a kiddo so I’m up by 8 simply because of him. BUT I run a business and that takes work and dedication. So I drag myself out of bed at 5 so that I have a few hours of uninterrupted work time before my kiddo gets up. I can’t say this has always been the thing though. It took a lot of mindset work, dedication, and motivation to get me up liek I am not, but I KNOW you can do it too!. When he was small I realized that staying up late wasn’t working for me because we homeschool first thing in the morning and I can’t be a zombie for the work. So instead I go to bed appropriately and I get up early. I sit here right now and it’s 5:22am, I don’t like it, but I’m up and work is getting done. SURE, I’d rather be asleep, snuggled in my warm bed next to my husband, but if I don’t get up and get my “work” done then I won’t have a chance to get anything done the rest of the afternoon today because we are jam packed. I use to work at night when the kiddo was smaller because night time (after everyone was in bed) was the easiest for me. NO, this isn’t an easy thing to do, yes there are days where sleep is scarce, but here”s the thing, it WONT be forever. As my business grows I am able to bring on more people to do tasks here and there and I get a smidge more sleep here and there. You must learn to give up a few things now (like sleep) so that you can have SO much later!
Overall you MUST remember. We all have the exact same amount of hours in our days. You are no more busy than any other over exhausted mom on this planet. It’s simply a matter of how you choose to spend the time you have each day.
Rather than saying “I just don’t have time” or “I’m just so busy” I want you to try to find just twenty minutes in your day where you can begin to cultivate some of your dreams. You CAN succeed as a mompreneur, you just must find your mompreneur mindset and your mompreneur groove!
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I just started my own business, and it’s definitely hard work! These are some good tips to follow; it’s good to have a positive mindset (and a glass of wine with some chocolate…I find that helps 😅)!
I love your list. “Employer” vs. “Employee” mentality are entirely different, people just don’t care as much when it isn’t their name on the building. I used a profit sharing compensation system to keep my staff motivated and it helped, but just not the same. I used to run my own business but sold out to a competitor about 5 years ago and stayed on as a “sales manager”. My income went down, but my work/life balance went up. When you own your business you are married to it and it is hard to get away. It is not for everyone.
such great tips, and love how positive you are!x
Making adjustments and pockets of time are my two takeaways from this article. Thank you for sharing!
thank you for good content ,its useful .
Sleeping late works out better for me than waking up. These are wonderful tips
LOVE. It definitely takes some planning + focus to get things done when you have tiny humans! The biggest lesson I learned when I went from working at home to being a work-at-home mom is that all the work still gets done BUT in a much different way than before I had kids!
Lists and working in time chunks are absolutely so crucial to my success. If I don’t do that I literally get nothing done. Also, lists make me feel so productive when I cross something off. 🙂
awesome list of tips! I swear, most days I have no idea where the time went, there seems to be so much to do and no time to get it all done. I think getting organized like you mentioned and making lists may help. Gonna try this out.
These are good tips! I definitely have to have my to-do list.. or the mom brain sets in and I forget half the things that must get done!
These are great steps! I love the pockets of time step, I do that too!
Time blocking and lists are my life! I love these tips and need to get better on a few of them myself.
This post is so timely for me. I am struggling with balance and have been implementing many of the same since last month.
The pockets of time is so true! As a mama to a one-year-old, I at least still have nap time to clean and then get work done! And I would love to get up before my little one – but lately he thinks 3 or 4 is a great wake up time! Nope – but someday though!
Yes! Get up before your family gets up. This is key. I can’t get anything done unless I’ve had a couple hours productively working before everyone gets up. 🙂
Great tips! How long have you been switched over to the early AM?
I aspire to be a mompreneur one day! I know I have what it takes, but I’m waiting for the right idea! I wake up between 4-5 am most days to exercise, journal, and drink my coffee before my kids wake up and I LOVE that time to myself!
These are such great tips! It can get so overwhelming sometimes and I think, do I really need to be doing all this with everything else I have going on? But yes youre right, it’s about finding that balance and pockets of time where we can get things done.
Yes! — Especially #3 & #5. Oh my gosh if I didn’t take it in chunks then I would never work at all. Solid advice for work at home parents!
Great list! Being a mom boss is hard work! These are great steps to take to make things a little easier.
Solid tips…. thanks for sharing
Great tips on blocking on time chunks and the importance of mindset. Some days mindset makes all the difference!
I love these tips but #5 is my favorite! i have been doing this for years and it is when I do my best work.
These are great tips! A To-Do list is an absolute must!! I forget everything. If I don’t have a list I am a gonner!
Hi,
I’m a Dadpreneur and enjoyed your post. I like Trello for keeping a to-do list. It’s free to use and is basically a paper list on your computer. I was always writing things down or bookmarking them, but then losing track. Trello works best for me as I leave it up in a tab, and it’s always there to keep me on task.
Rich
This is a great post! As a mompreneur, I find myself staying productive and on track. My mom brain makes me so forgetful.
Man..Make adjustments in you daily routine in order to grant yourself more time for work is so important. Letting fishes sit in the sink until baby goes to bed totally won’t kill you.
I definitely need to put some of these tips into action. Thanks for sharing