Working from home can be a huge adjustment for anyone. Now, when you work at home, add a couple of kids to the mix, PLUS summer vacation, feeling overwhelmed becomes an understatement.
Being a mom of 7, with six of them at home…my sanity has just about been lost, since school let out a couple of weeks ago. My “routine” has changed, along with my daily work schedule.
I’m sure if you are a work at home mom, you can totally understand!
Get Your Priorities In Order…
I know for many of us mom entrepreneurs, family comes before business. I also know, a lot of work at home moms actually slow down or, put their business on “hold” entirely, during the summer months. Though I never recommend anyone slow down in business, everyone has to do what works for them.
What I do suggest, is we learn to adapt.
Family always comes first for me, and my kids are priority number one, that’s why I chose to be a home based entrepreneur in the first place. So, let me share with you what I do to assure my kids get my time, without my business having to suffer.
Keep Kids Happy & Keep Mom Paid!
Here is the thing, you have to adjust your activity. Meaning, your goal is to be as productive as possible, in the shortest amount of time, and get results. If you are like me, and building your business online, you need to be getting leads, closing prospects, and making sales, every single day.
1. Get Really Focused
You have to be focused. This is not the time to launch something new, get extra creative, or try new methods. You have to focus on getting back to the basics –Â Income Producing Activities. That means knowing your daily/weekly/monthly profit, and profit generating goals. You need to have this written down so you can make sure you are meeting your minimums.
What product/service will you market to your audience? What social media platforms will you use? What is your delivery method (blogging, video, email, calls, etc.)? Essentially, you have to have a plan of action that you can follow and implement. If you have no clue what you need to be doing day-to-day…you’ll be wasting time in non-producing activity.
Take some time each night to plan your tasks for the next day. Which leads to my next tip…
2. Schedule Work Hours & Manage Your Time
Yep, you know I have to talk about the dreaded…”time management”. Listen, if you want to be successful in business, you have to learn how to manage your time. The best way to do that is to whip out a calendar and block off hours each day you will work your business.
The key here: Work around your family so you don’t feel guilty. Your ‘work hours’ may have to shift a bit like mine. I sacrifice sleep by staying up late, working on tasks that require me to be focused – like content creation.
Between 12AM- 3AM are the hours I do marketing related work. Why? Because I know marketing is necessary, in order to grow a profitable business, especially online. Yes, I sacrifice my sleep so I can have more time with my little people during the day. A couple of months of less sleep won’t kill me, nor will it kill you. Hey, that’s what entrepreneurs do…right?
3. Set Daily Goals
During the day, I still work…just not as much as when the kids are in school. I spend time following up with clients & customers, following up with prospects, working with my team members, social media, filling orders, emails, you know, the typical stuff that needs to be done.
I have a set number of people I will talk to each day, follow-up with, call, etc. I also have a daily sales goal. These are things I do every day without fail. It’s what I focus on. Remember I talked about Income Producing Activities earlier? These things are a MUST in my business.
Set your daily goals!
Sounds overwhelming? It’s not when you follow my next tip…
4. Use Tools To Manage & Save Time
I build my home based business 100% online. However, I don’t want to spend every waking minute working on it. After all, my brand is all about creating Life Freedom. Being a mom of seven, other moms always ask me, “how do you manage being a work at home mom with seven kids?”
I use tools to help me manage and save time.
HootSuite is my favorite. I schedule most of my content and social media posts at night (during my late night marketing hours), to go out the next day. It’s how I’m able to sleep in and still be online…did you catch that?!?
I use the schedule feature on my Facebook Page to do the same thing. I schedule posts that are for upcoming training webinars, conference calls, or events, that I want to make sure my audience knows about. That way I don’t forget, or get the word out to late.
I use various social media platforms to leverage my content. In other words, I write a blog post here in WordPress, and schedule it to post when I want. I share to my various social media networks (Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, etc.) where they get shared by others and generate traffic back to my blog daily.
My email list subscribers also receives my blog articles automatically, once they post. The only work I do to push content, is to write my article and share on my social networks. Aweber, and MailChimp, are all great email service providers.
Using an email service allows you to build and grow your list, so you can establish a relationship with your audience. You can also use the autoresponder feature which allows you to write, schedule, and send pre-written emails to people who are on your list.
This saves me time, and eliminates the need for me to constantly have to manually send or reply to messages.
5. Manage, Automate, Simplify Your Marketing
This is where my inner nerdiness shines!
If you plan on really building, or expanding your business online, you have got to learn how to develop your own marketing system. But, before you freak out because you don’t have an inkling of how to go about doing that, you can access an online internet marketing and educational platform, for all the training and tools you need.
This is how you build a business online, on autopilot. Using a marketing system is how I’m able to generate leads into my business on a daily basis. It’s the way you automate sales. It’s the way you you build your network marketing organization without needing your family and friends.
It’s a way to work your home based business 24 hrs a day, without you having to put in 24 hrs per day.
If you want to know how to eliminate what you don’t know about internet marketing…you can find out how, here.
So, there you have it!
These are the 5 steps you can use this summer to remain productive in your business, even if you are a time strapped, and busy, work at home mom!
What are some of the things you do in your business during the summer to make sure you don’t slow down, but stay productive? Share below…
“Helping passionate women entrepreneurs build their business
online so they can spend more time living, and less time working!”
Tamyka Washington
WOW!! Thanks for these helpful tips! I will definitely follow these as I plan my summer work schedule, as I am a Summer Stay Home Mom. I appreciate all the great information you share with us!
Thanks Sondra! I’m so glad you found these tips helpful. Summertime can still be fun & profitable! 🙂
Thank you for these 5 tips. This was a clear, simple and refreshing blog!!! Love this Life FREEDOM Brand!
You are so welcome, Stephanie! I’m glad it was clear and simple…in pursuit of Life Freedom! 🙂