Feeling overwhelmed as you try to launch your business while balancing Junior on your hip? Fear not: These tips will have you running your company and your household like a pro, and ensure that the people who love you most don’t take a backseat to your biz.
Take time for yourself. When all of your time is spent caring for others, it can be tempting to call the time spent on your business “personal time.” It’s not. Taking a few moments to read something inspiring, drinking your coffee uninterrupted, or getting a pedicure once in a while can seem like impossible feats, but these breaks in your busy day will help both your business and your family. A happy mom means a happy family.
Simplify. Juggling dinners, playtime, a business, and housework can make anyone crazy. If you’re the cook in your home, learn a few healthy dinners that can be made in thirty minutes. And have a mommy-uniform. It doesn’t have to be drab, but like the dinners, it should be something that can be thrown together without too much thought, or varied slightly to suit the occasion. As an example, my baked lemon chicken breast dinner is sometimes made with cornmeal and sometimes with sundried tomatoes. Since I’m breast-feeding, my uniform is jeans and a button-down shirt for more active days, and wrap dresses for everything else. It takes all of the thought out of what to wear.
Prepare the night before. I find the most stressful thing about trying to launch a business and run a household is not the number of chores, but the feeling of constantly being behind. From making lunches to making sure that my diaper bag and car are packed to running through the next day’s to-do list, I find that the days are much smoother and less stressful when I prepare the night before.
Play with your kids. It’s inevitable that you’ll feel like your child is neglected when you’re trying to launch a business. Even if you are lucky enough to have help during the day, make a date with your child every day. Whether it’s a trip to the library for storytime, a playdate at the park, or just a walk around the neighborhood, time spent solely on your child or children will make everyone happy. Your business can take over your life if you let it, but isn’t the point of being a mompreneur the “mom” part?
Blog. There is a rich mom blog network out there. Having a blog connected to your Web site is a great way to improve your ranking on search engines, as there are so many mom networks to link back to your site. Plus, blogging is a nice way to get your creative juices flowing.
