If you’ve been on a call with me recently, you’ve probably met my little guy, Easton. He’s a snuggler and a pretty easy going newborn so long as you are holding him. Put him down and it’s a different story. As a busy mompreneur, it can get uber challenging to “be productive” while holding a newborn in one hand but here’s the thing, where there is a will there is a way. I’m relentlessly committed to building a business that allows me to be present as a mother, educates more female entrepreneurs and is scalable. At some point, I’d like to be able to take a whole month off and not have the business go crashing down. I mean who doesn’t want that!?! So, I thought that I would share some of my productivity tips for getting shit done when the kids are chaotic.
- Post-it Notes are your friend: Start the day by being intentional with your time. Grab a post-it note and write down 3 items you WILL accomplish during the day.
- Be Creative with your time: I find I get most of my work done before the sun comes
up. I get up around 5 and work until around 6:30 when everyone gets up. This is when I get most of “work” done and I am UBER productive. I don’t open my email, my facebook or anything distracting. I simply get up and work on the 3 things I want to accomplish. You know, the things you need to hands for, like writing a blog or creating a video. I find that checking things, like facebook and instagram are great to do in the pockets of your time, meaning when you have 5 minutes in the car and you are waiting for pick-up. - Delegate: If you find that the same items are on your post-it notes day in and day out that may be som
ething good to delegate. Delegating is going to free up your time so you can work to your strengths rather than focusing on things like scheduling social media, folding laundry or whatever it might be. - Be intentional with your time: Stop spending hours on social media. When you have time to work, work. Close all of the other tabs you have open and do one thing at a time. Leave the multi-tasking, for carrying the baby and the bottles down the stairs. When it comes to work, work on work. If you are spending time with your kids spend time with your kids. Don’t try to work on your phone while spending time with your kids. They know when you are paying attention and I find on days when I have to work and have my son, if I spend an hour with him solely focused on him he will actually be a bit more autonomous afterward.
- Set up a play place for them in your office: This may sound a bit silly but my 3.5 year old has a desk in my office that he will “do business” at for about an hour while I work. While this isn’t always ideal it gives me some time to reply to emails and delegate tasks to my virtual assistant.
- Have a dedicated place to work: Having a dedicated place to work will signal the entire family, “Hey, Mom’s working.” This was a HUGE thing for my family, if I am sitting at my desk in my office, that means I am “doing business”.
- Get Organized & Create Systems: Dedicate a day and get organized. Pick a day that you get your content done weekly. Get a day to do all your billing. Automate your billing. Get a social media system in place. Use a project management software. Get a scheduler. These are just a few of the things you can do to get yourself organized. But getting organized is key to staying sane.
- Set Office Hours: When I say this to most mompreneurs they typically tell me I’m nuts but trust me on this one. Work expands to time allowed. Set office hours and honor them. Of course, there will be weeks that you need to make exceptions but stick to it, you will feel more sane.
- Simplify Your Offerings: This was my saving grace. I stopped trying to be everything to everyone and just started following my heart in business. Teaching female entrepreneurs how to build their online empires and I simplified what I was doing; Group offerings or one on one. No more endless proposals. No more back and forth. No m ore custom options. It makes life easy and it keeps me in my zone of genius.
If getting stuff done is still getting you down then grab a 30-minute complimentary consult here so I can help you get more done each and every day so you have more time and freedom in your life.
