I have two kids and run two businesses. My kids are a seven-month-old girl and a three-year-old boy. My first business, a Web consultancy called Soapbxx, grossed $300,000 in 2009 and employs eight people. The second company, an online finance publication for women called DailyWorth, has no revenue (yet) and requires a team of four part-time contractors to operate.
The best news? I’m not mad. I have plenty of time to be with my kids. I even manage to find time to have a leisurely lunch or extended “me” time.
Here’s how I do it:
7 a.m.: Our baby girl wakes all of us up.
8 a.m.: We’re downstairs, dressed, eating breakfast and packing lunches.
9 a.m.: My baby girl is cared for by a nanny. Our nanny shows up at 9 a.m. and I hand my baby girl off. My three year old goes to preschool. My husband always takes him to preschool. Bottom line: even if we’re running late, I depart for my home office (top floor of our house) at 9 a.m. sharp. This is critical to me. 9.a.m. Work.
9 a.m.–11 a.m.: After I clean out my in-box, I focus on DailyWorth, the finance website for women. We send out a daily email, and this requires about two hours of my day to orchestrate.
11 a.m.–4:00 p.m.: I focus on Soapbxx, my web consultancy. The tasks I concern myself with include:
- Ensuring that I’m selling and closing the next $50,000–$80,000 Web project.
- Managing our project coordinators to make sure that they’re planning and managing Website projects effectively.
- Reviewing and testing Websites that are close to launch; logging tasks into our project management system that I think need to be considered or changed.
- Producing strategic documents. Many clients hire my company because of the strategic services I sell them. As a result, I personally handle a lot of the planning and strategy documents that go with selling large, complex websites.
I don’t worry about Soapbxx’s internal performance or quality because I’ve learned over the years how to hire only the best people. My team is exceptional and as a result, I don’t have to micro-manage them or worry much. This did not happen by accident. I have ten years practice hiring and firing. I’ve employed or contracted to forty people over the last few years and only a select few remain.
4:00 p.m. I shut down my computer, scoop up my daughter, and drive to pick up my son from preschool. It feels incredible to me that I can run two companies and finish my workday by 4:00. Having been raised by a single mom who was forced into a strict nine to six corporate work environment, I vowed to set up a life where I could be there for my kids more than my mom was for me. I don’t blame my mom for her absence—she did what she had to do to earn what she needed to earn in the 1980s. But I hated that she couldn’t drive me to school, or be there for me after school. I’m structuring my life so that I can run my businesses and be there for my kids before and after school. In 2009, working moms can have it all if we plan properly.
3:00 p.m.–9 p.m. Family time! We run errands (Target, anyone?), make dinner, take baths, read books and every other bedtime ritual that makes having kids so special.
9 p.m.–11 p.m. Here’s the part of my life that isn’t so ideal. I generally boot up my Mac and do more work at 9 p.m. I sense that my husband would rather that I curl up on the sofa and watch “True Blood” with him. Truth is, I feel pulled to run through emails that came in from 3:30–7 p.m. (there are often many) and finish tasks I wasn’t able to finish during the day. I look forward to a day when I can stop work at 3:30 p.m. and not resume until 9 a.m. the next day. Until my babies and businesses are more self-sufficient and systematized, it’s a sacrifice I’m making, and hope that my husband realizes it’s temporary.
