For mums who are self employed, the school holidays result in even more juggling around family life, whilst still trying to run a business.
As a business owner it’s hard to take time out when your business needs to still be up and running throughout the year.
If you are looking keep your business going, whilst enjoying and managing the daily activities of family life, here are my top tips for work/life integration.
Plan ahead
The build up to the school holidays is a good time to spend time formulating a plan to help the time go as smoothly as possible. Spend time not only focusing on what needs to happen with your business, but also what you want to do with the kids, where are you going to go, what are you going to need etc.
Prioritise what needs to be done
We all have what feels like a never ending to do list of what we want to achieve and goals we have set, but use your planning time to categorise these into what needs to be done and what you would like to do. Anything you can get done before the school holidays start will help, but ensure the only things you need to worry about are the important “do now” tasks. Check out my blog on how to effectively prioritise your workload.
Scheduling
As part of your planning, spend time scheduling your social media posts with the likes of Buffer or Hootsuite; or if you have regular emarketing or emails that need to be sent out, most programmes will have a built-in or add on scheduler to do this for you. You can continue engaging with your customers, and dip in and out when you have some spare time to engage directly.
Delegate and outsource
If your children are old enough, can they get involved to help with little bits and pieces, even some chores around the house whilst you catch up on emails? Or have you considered outsourcing some tasks to a Virtual Assistant to ease the burden? Many offer ad hoc support so you could arrange to use them for a couple of days during the holiday periods and carry on as normal the rest of the year round.
Family and friends
Do you have family or friends, even other parents in a similar situation to you that you could call on to help out by taking the kids for an odd day out and give you a full day to concentrate on your business? In turn you can then arrange to take their kids out for a day to ease the pressure from them.
Phone calls and out of office
Set yourself specific times throughout the day that you can check your messages, then set a voicemail advising callers, and an out of office advising senders that you are available between x and x time if they need to speak to you urgently. If they need to speak to you urgently they will either call back between these times or you can give them a call. Anything that is not urgent can then wait until you are free to focus.
Remember to take some time out
Don’t forget you do need to take some time out of your business to spend with your family. Plan to take some time out where you can focus your attention entirely on your family and enjoy their company without the distraction of your business.
Do you have some top tips on how you juggle running a business around your family commitments? Please feel free to share them.
If you do need assistance of a Virtual Assistant to help you during the school holidays, why not arrange a call with me now to discuss ways that I could help ease the burden and allow you the family time you deserve. Email info@njrvirtualpa.co.uk or call 07538 715537.
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