Keeper of the Home » Making money

Managing Life as a Work-at-Home Mom: How to Juggle It All, Part 2

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:00:46 +0000

Did you miss the first two posts in this series? Find them here and here.

Let's continue on with the practical, shall we?

Making Work More Productive

Part of the balancing act is learning to work smarter, not harder. This includes developing the ability to see what doesn't need to be done, and not just learning to do too many things more efficiently. Doing unnecessary work "efficiently" is still a waste of time!

Here are some productivity tips that work for me:

Batching. Rather than processing emails as they come in, on your iPhone or by checking your email frequently as you work, set aside particular chunks of time where you deal with it all at once. You'll be far less distracted and get through it faster. The rest of the time? Just close your email. The world will go on. (And you can apply this to many areas- do all of your weekly writing in one time slot, process orders all at once, etc.)
Set timers for work. I love using The Tiny Timer while I'm writing or completing tasks. It helps me to work faster, stay more focused, and be better at stopping when I need to.
Plan what you need to do before you begin. If I sit down with the computer without a prioritized to-do list, my time use is poor, to say the least. By taking 5 minutes to brainstorm what needs to be done and put it in a priority sequence (most important tasks first), I actually accomplish what is truly important, instead of just what comes easily.
Use Google mail and learn to manage your email well.
Use Google calendars or iCalendar. I use reminders for everything from my blogging post schedule to submitting my food co-op orders to date night with my husband to following up with an advertiser. I have the reminders sent to my email. Some people like the pop-up reminders. Use what works for you.
Avoid email and social media while doing important tasks. This is more particular to having a web-based business like I do, but for anyone that works from home, it's a matter of figuring out what are the distractions that keep you from completing important tasks quickly and effectively, and shutting them off.
Eat a frog. Do your crucial tasks first.

Automate, eliminate, delegate. The process goes like this... take the things that you are currently doing or feel need to be done. Then ask yourself, 1) Can this task be automated in some way? (Computer program, reminders, auto-responders, etc.) 2) Can this task be eliminated? (Is it truly valuable, does it contribute to income-production, is it unnecessary busy work?) and 3) Can this task be delegated? (Again, back to hiring things out. Can someone else do this better/faster/cheaper? Do I really need to be the one to do this?). Just a few examples:

Auto-feeds for social media (I do this for Twitter, but not for Facebook)
Setting up detailed FAQ pages to refer people to
Use email filters to avoid seeing things you don't really need to see, or to automatically forward emails to people who need to deal with them (when it's not you)
Staying current in your field. How many blogs, magazines, articles do you need to read? Is reading them daily or even weekly necessary? How many conferences are worthwhile to attend? Which trade shows are actually worth going to? Be brutal and eliminate everything but the best.
Make a list of all tasks that you do and assess all of the ones that someone else could do, and if you can, seek to delegate or hire them out. Focus only on what you do best and what tasks absolutely require you and you alone.

Image by comedy_nose

Creative Scheduling

Part of being able to keep my family a priority and balance my work time with my husband's is that we try to arrange our schedules creatively. Who says you need to work within regular work hours?

Think outside the box. I use a combination of different times of day, lengths of time, and locations. When you look at your schedule, don't toss out any ideas without considering them. In some seasons, I have gotten up super early one morning a week, or let the children have a movie one afternoon a week. Take advantage of a night that your husband works late. There are so many possibilities.
When do you work best- mornings, afternoons, evenings? Choosing to work during your ideal times helps a lot with productivity. I write and work well in the mornings and early afternoons, but in the evenings my brain starts to shut off. I work one evening each week because it just happened to work that way, but it isn't intensive writing work. I also won't wake up super early to work anymore, because I personally prefer to keep that time for exercise and devotions, and I am a basket-case when I attempt to do mornings at 4 or 5am. For others, they thrive in the early mornings and so that might be their best time!
Before you put together your work schedule, carve out the times that are essential for your family's rhythms and routines. I slot in essentials like meals, homeschool, church caregroup and the like before planning the rest of my schedule.

Letting Go of Things That Aren't Necessary

Some things I've found it's good to let go of:

Social media. I keep it bare bones.
Checking email (or anything else) constantly. Not everything is urgent, so why treat it as such? Just because technology has made us available to the rest of the world every second of the day doesn't mean that we need to go along with it. Turn things OFF.
Making fancy meals. I realized that my family was just as happy with simple meals, so I toned down the need to make more elaborate things with multiple courses or dishes. Soup with bread, pasta with a meat-and-veggie sauce, a hearty casserole with some raw veggies. Why does it need to be more complicated?
Some household tasks. Do the floors really need to be cleaned on a particular schedule if they still look good from the last time you did them? Does anyone look inside your pajama or underwear drawers? I don't fold pajamas or kids pants, and store all my kids underwear and cloth diapers unfolded in baskets. When you're pressed for time with cleaning, do the doorknobs and baseboards and little crevices make a big difference? Focus on the basics- decluttered and wiped surfaces, floors, bathroom basics, and a tidy entryway.
Every opportunity. You can't say yes to everything. I've turned down things that I really wanted to do, but knew would be too much for me and my family.
Perfectionism. I aim for a high quality of standard in the work that I do, especially in my writing. I edit every post as carefully as possible but eventually, I have to press Publish. If I make a mistake, then I make one. Sometimes we just have to do our best, and be content with letting our best be good enough.
Being superwoman. You really can't be. And that's OK.

Source: uhohitsem.tumblr.com via Kelly on Pinterest

Resources to Recommend

Here are some highly recommend resources that have both challenged and encouraged me in my own journey as a blogger and work-at-home mom:

For bloggers in particular:

How to Make Money Blogging series @ Money Saving Mom

My Top 11 Blogging Tips @ Simple Mom

Blogging With Amy (a blog about blogging for profit, in easy-to-understand language)

Simple Blogging eBook by Rachel Meeks of Small Notebook (this eBook really challenged all the things I thought I "had" to do as a blogger and helped me to scale back and focus on the essentials)

For work-from-home moms in general:

Working from Home @ Simple Mom (this link is to the entire category, because it's full of useful posts, too many to link individually)

Becoming a Work at Home Mom @ Money Saving Mom

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too by Mandi Ehman of Life...Your Way.

The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss- This is where I got the concept of automation, elimination and delegation. The book is very counter-cultural (and he is not coming from a Christian perspective at all so keep that in mind), but in my opinion, there are some brilliant ideas as far as managing work load, and it's at least worth taking out of the library.

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam- I'm reading through this right now and finding that it is really challenging the way that I think about how I use my time. It's from the perspective of a work-at-home-mom, although it is written for a broader audience.

What are your productivity tips? What things do you let go of and what helps you juggle it all?

Top image by Marina Pics

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Managing Life as a Work-at-Home Mom: How to Juggle It All, Part 1

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:00:26 +0000

As I shared last week, I think that working-at-home is an amazing and viable opportunity for many women who wish to (or need to) work but still want to remain at home with their children.

Today, I want to get really practical and start sharing some of the things you can do to really make it work for you. There's no denying that it is a challenge to manage the tasks of maintaining a home and a business, while still having time to care for and love on (and even homeschool) your kids.

Goodness knows, I don't have all the answers, nor do I implement all of these suggestions perfectly. These ideas are the result of 4 1/2 years of trial and error, glaring mistakes, reading good books, and learning from others. Most of them aren't revolutionary. They just work. I need to be reminded of them as much as I want to share them with you.

Getting the Help That You Need

I resisted this for the longest time, for two reasons.

First, we often feel that it is a sign of weakness or that it is unacceptable to get help. Admit it. We want to feel like we can handle everything ourselves.

Problem is, we can't. We need to stop trying to be superwoman, change our attitudes about this and be willing to get the help that we need in order to carry on in a balanced and healthy way.

The second is that I mistakenly believed that I had more time than I had money, and therefore should do everything myself. This is a flawed idea.

If it takes me 6 hours and much frustration to do a design project that is mediocre and may result in less sales or a less professional image, but it takes a professional designer 2 hours to create something stunning and highly effective, that money is well spent. I can focus my time on the things that I excel at, the things that build up my business and ultimately make more money, and her superior design may result in more book sales, more clickthroughs, more pageviews on my website, etc. which in turn might generate income that easily makes up for the expense of the designer.

Making these decisions to hire help becomes easier when you calculate your hourly wage. I know, nobody is keeping tabs of your hours and handing you a neat and tidy paycheck in a home business situation. So, you'll need to calculate it yourself. Figure out the average number of hours that you work per week or per month, calculate the average amount that you earn in the same period of time (your profits, after your expenses), then divide the earnings by the number of hours worked. Voila. You have your "hourly wage".

This calculation was instrumental for me in making the decision to hire my first assistant. If I could earn "X" number of dollars per hour, but could hire someone to take some of the workload off of me for less than what I was earning, didn't it make sense to allow them to do those things, freeing me to do more of the things that grow my business? In both of our (very different) home businesses, my husband and I have found this to be true over and over again.

Does it feel like a risk? Yes. Have we ever felt that we truly didn't have the money? Yup. And I would never, ever suggest that you put yourself into any amount of debt to make such decisions. But, if you can do it without going into the red, and you can see that it could be financially worthwhile when you really analyze it, don't be afraid to hire the help that you need.

(There are also plenty of ways to make this more affordable- barter or trade services, try hiring virtual help from someone in a developing country for less than you would pay here- more on this in the comments section, find someone who is just starting up their business and charging less in exchange for a testimonial or review, hire a skilled high schooler, etc. but this could be a whole other post in and of itself!)

What Do I Hire Out?

I have an assistant, Lindsey, who works about 5 hours per week and helps me with things like moderating comments, emails, research, book promotion, giveaways, and running my private advertising program. I hire out practically all of my design work, as well as my technical behind-the-scenes website issues and upgrades, to a husband and wife team. I'm completing my 3rd eBook with the help of an eBook designer who is also taking care of all formatting and file conversions, plus I hired a wonderful editor rather than attempting to edit the book myself.

I have a mother's helper who comes once a week for an afternoon. She cares for my children and performs one housekeeping task for me each week, like vacuuming or mopping. As I write this post, I have suddenly found my schedule piled up with some unexpected work for the music school we own, in addition to the blog's deadlines and projects, and so this afternoon I will be making some calls for a house cleaner to come for the next few weeks. I don't usually hire someone to clean, but I have no qualms about doing it when needed, either.

Keeping Your Family a Priority

If there's one thing I have learned, keeping my husband and children a priority is absolutely crucial as a work-at-home mom. There have been seasons where my work kept me too busy and distracted, with little leftover to offer my family relationally and I don't want to every do that again.

These are some of the ways that I intentionally keep my family a priority:

Create my work schedule in such a way as to not be on the computer while I'm with my children. I do this to the best of my ability, and yes, sometimes I do work a little bit when I'm with them, but by and large I avoid this as much as possible.
Our mornings are kept sacred, as a time when I eat breakfast with the kids (and my husband, when he's home), and we focus on homeschool, devotions and chores until lunchtime. No computer allowed, unless it's for homeschool purposes.
My husband also works from home, and so we work hard to communicate about what we each need, help each other out in hectic seasons, and take turns having special time with the children. We really have to respect one another's work space and needs, and the better we get at calmly expressing those needs and coming up with solutions together, the better we work as a team.
Learn to walk away. When I used to work on the computer near my kids, I found myself going into "uh-huh" mode too frequently. They became frustrated because they knew I wasn't really paying attention, and I became frustrated by being interrupted. That's why I don't do that anymore. If I do happen to pull out the computer when they're with me, I have to be willing to shut it and walk away to give them 100% of my attention if they need it.
Take time off when you need it. As a family of entrepreneurs, sometimes we just need to call a family day and leave the work behind. We do this occasionally- stop homeschool, plan something fun and just get out of the house together. We always find it refreshing. Holidays are important, and over Christmas, I took a week where I barely even checked my email, let alone did anything else. I'm also planning to take a one-month maternity leave when this new baby arrives in the next 4-6 weeks (but don't worry- there will be plenty of fantastic content, from both myself and other writers).

I simply had too much to share to keep this to one post, so next week I'll share more about working productively, scheduling work time creatively, letting go of things that aren't necessary, and also give some recommended resources.

Do you have a hard time choosing to get the help that you need (this actually applies to all moms, not just ones that work from home)? How do you keep your family a priority in your schedule and daily routine?

Top image by Marina Pics. Other image is our family this summer.

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Managing Life as a Work-at-Home Mom

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:00:04 +0000

As someone who has a firm conviction that being home with my children and keeping my home is the best thing that I could possibly do in this season of life, I never really considered any sort of career or business work once that first sweet baby arrived.

Becoming a work-at-home mom was not part of my original plan. I love the idea of focusing only on my home, my children and my husband and not balancing hours of other work on top of it all. That's what I always thought that I would do.

When blogging and writing turned from hobby to a small income-earning opportunity to a full-fledged business and career pursuit, it surprised me, at times overwhelmed me, but ultimately thrilled me and became something wonderful that I didn't know I wanted (but am so glad that I have).

In the midst of talking about frugality and money-management this month, it seemed only right to also share about generating an income from home, since I know that this is a desire for so many other moms and homemakers.

Is It Worth It?

Personally, I am so grateful that God had bigger ideas than I did when this little blog began so many years ago. He knew the challenges our family would face and the risks we would decide to take as we pursued our dreams. He gave me an opportunity to challenge myself and serve our family in a way I never anticipated. To be able to do something I love from home, while staying focused on caring for and homeschooling my children and keeping my home, is an amazing thing.

I can choose my own hours, take time off when needed, and have complete creative freedom and control as an entrepreneur. I adore what I do and it would be hard to give it up.

There have been hard times as well. For all those business-owners out there reading this, you know well how easy it can be to push yourself too hard, to let the lines between personal and work time blur too much, to allow priorities to become out of order, and for relationships and health to suffer. I've been there. It was a dark time in my life.

I don't regret the work that I've done or that my children know that their mama runs a business as well as a home, but I have at times regretted how I have done things and I have had to make a lot of changes over the past year to work less and work smarter.

Image by Marina Pics

How Do I "Do It All"?

The short answer is, I don't.

What many people don't realize is that those of us who have chosen to work from home (while being committed to caring for our home and children full-time) is that there are many sacrifices along the way.

Things that I have sacrificed to do what I do:

"Free" time (Hobbies? What are those?)
Having an especially clean or well-decorated home
A lot of social outings and opportunities (nights spent home in front of the computer, missed playdates or times with friends, etc.)
Making as many things as I want to from scratch. I buy most (though not all) of my natural skincare products, non-toxic cleaners, Christmas gifts, and some foods, like lacto-fermented sauerkraut, yogurt or sprouted grain breads. I love making what I can, but there's only so much time in the day.
Internet browsing or social media (I don't do Facebook or Twitter other than minimally for business purposes and I hardly ever have the time for pleasure reading blogs or articles these days)

Things I have sacrificed at times, but have learned the hard way that I shouldn't:

Quiet times with the Lord. When we think we don't have enough time, that's when we need to make time.
Exercise. I can't tell you how much better and more energetic this makes me feel.
Sleep.
Time with my kids. I'll talk more in the next post about how I have moved towards hardly ever being on my computer when I'm around my kids.
Time with my husband (another one that is never worth it)

Image by vxla

Time Management Tips for Balancing Home, Family and Business

After doing this for over four years, one of the best pieces of advice that I can give is to keep things separate. By working hard to keep my computer time contained within certain hours and days, and keeping the laptop shut the rest of the time, I have so much more peace and productivity than I did when I was less strict about when I tackled work tasks.

Here's what my work week looks like:

Tuesday 12:30-3:30pm (at coffee shop, while our regular mother's helper comes over to be with the children)

Thursday 7:30-10:00pm (work in my living room, after putting children to bed, while my husband works late)

Friday 9:00am-5:00pm (at coffee shop, while my husband is with the children and does homeschooling-- however, this is just a temporary thing while I finish up a few projects and soon I will only be working 3-4 hours on Fridays)

*I know that many couples aren't able to work out an arrangement like we have for Fridays. This is a new thing for us only in the past 6 weeks or so, as my husband's work schedule was previously much too busy. In the past, I would work one or two extra evenings instead, or try to squeeze some extra work time out of a nap/quiet time. I also chose not to take on any large projects for the past year, because I knew I simply couldn't do them and still keep up with everything else.

Aside from those specific work times, I also:

Open my laptop once, very briefly, in the mornings to check in with my HelloMornings Facebook group and to put up the newest post on the Keeper of the Home Facebook page. Then I close it as quickly as I can, before I get myself into trouble. :)
Occasionally go on for 30-60 minutes in the afternoon while kids are occupied/having quiet times or maybe for an hour in the evenings, but only if I really need to.

I try not to touch my computer on the weekends to the best of my ability. I break this rule sometimes if there is a time-sensitive project I have going on (like a book launch, or a website re-design or technical problem), or if I've gotten behind due to unexpected circumstances like illness.

I know this may not be the right strategy for everyone. I have a blogging friend that likes being able to attend to things like her emails, while sitting at the table beside her daughter and being available to stop and offer homeschool help and guidance as needed. It really works for her and that's awesome.

Personally, I get distracted and find that I am not able to be effective in either homeschooling or work tasks when I try to do the same. Knowing yourself and being honest about what is and isn't working is crucial.

Making Work at Home Work for You

I'm pretty sure there is no magical way to make this juggling act easy, but there are definitely ways to make it easier .

In my next post, I'll discuss things like getting the help that you need, making your work time more productive, creative scheduling, keeping your family a priority, and letting go of things that just aren't necessary (any guesses as to what I think those are?). Sound like fun? Make sure to check in for Part 2 next week!

Do you work from home? How do you keep life balanced and has it been worthwhile for you so far? What questions on the topic would you love to have answered?

Top image by Machine is Organic

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Getting homestay students

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:07:31 +0000

How do you go about hosting students? I'd love to hear more about this or get a website. Not only would our kids learn a lot but we would too.

God Bless,
Katie

Earlier this week, I mentioned that we said farewell to our two Taiwanese homestay students, and are preparing to welcome two new Korean girls into our home this coming week.

For us, taking short term students like this is an opportunity to make some extra money in a limited amount of time, while allowing me to remain focused on serving the needs of my family and enjoying getting to know students from a different culture. Through taking students, we have been able to do things like put money onto debt (though we are now debt free), buy a new computer, put money towards vacations (my favorite) or new instruments (my husband's favorite), that normally wouldn't be able to take out of our regular budget.

Seeing as I've already written quite a lengthy post on this, I thought I would direct you to that. It was my very first blog post ever (and no, it wasn't because it was the most interesting thing I could think of- but I wanted to link it up to a carnival, as I couldn't bear the thought of no one reading the first thing I put into the blogosphere!).

Making Money Through ESL

Since writing this post, we've taken a few more students and have begun to work with another school. The school we are currently doing homestays with is a private Christian school that brings in short term students for summer classes. The length of homestay ranges between 2-4 weeks, and the pay is $30 per night (from which we take food costs, gas expenses, etc.), and I am responsible for driving them to and from school, providing 3 meals a day (including a bagged lunch), laundry, and just including them in our family activities.

That's my Frugal Friday tip for this week- using this fun and relatively easy to make some extra money!

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Making money through books I love!

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:16:19 +0000

This weekend I had a small, but significant, breakthrough on my site! I made my first sale as an Amazon Associate! Quite honestly, one sale is pretty piddly, but it's the hopeful beginning of a way to bring in a bit of income on my site.

As a book lover, I had already intended to talk about books that I love, am currently reading, and to write book reviews in my blog. As an associate, I can create a product link each time I reference a book in my blog. I also have images of my recommended books in my sidebar, which I will rotate every month or so. If anyone clicks on my book links, they are taken to Amazon, and if they purchase the book, I make a commission. It's not a lot, but it will add up over time.

For those of you with blogs where you are already sharing your favorite books or current reading material, this is a great way to bring in a bit of extra income (click here for more money making ideas) through just a little bit of extra effort. Visit their site to find out more about the program.

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Mystery shopping

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:56:09 +0000

After reading Crystal's blog at Money Saving Mom, I felt inspired to rack my brain and think of another way that I've made money from home, and then it hit me- I've never mentioned mystery shopping!

Now, in my experience it's difficult to actually make cash money from mystery shopping. Perhaps in the US there are some companies that pay more money than what is available in Canada. The one that I signed up for did not pay a lot of actual cash (although sometimes the opportunity simply required time and a small cash reward was given, perhaps $10-20).

But usually I was rewarded through free services or items. This isn't quite making money, but if you can get things that your family needs and might have otherwise had to pay for, then it can almost as good.

For instance, through my mystery shopping we got free dinner for date nights, a free oil change, and free professional carpet cleaning in our home! Those are fairly practical things that were really helpful and enjoyable for us!

There are many websites to be found if you google "mystery shopping" or "secret shopping". For anyone in Canada, the one that I used is called Sensus.

Just a short tip this morning, as I'm off to try to grocery shop on a much decreased budget (for the Savvy Spending Challenge). Make sure you check out Making Do Mondays and add your own link!

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