Time Management For Your Home Business

Do you feel like you are drowning in all your responsibilities?

You might:

• Take care of all the cleaning in the home
• Take care of your young children
• Homeschool your kids
• Shuffle your kids to and from all their practices and school
• Work outside the home
• Volunteer outside the home
• and now somehow also build a thriving Home-Based Business

It’s a lot. Sometimes it can become very overwhelming. I am a stay-at-home mama. I have two preschoolers at home that I homeschool, I run this blog, I run a home-based business (doTERRA), and I’m alone much of the time because my husband is a military pilot. I’ve had to find ways to balance my home and business life. Sometimes the lines feel very blurred when you work online from home.

Here are my tips for Time Management for Your Home Business:

Get a Planner

Yup, it’s the first one because it’s the most obvious. You need to control your time and plan how it will be used – don’t let yourself wonder at the end of the week where all the time went.

I love using Plum Paper Planners. They are very customizable and super cute. I have one with a Prickly Pear cover and it has spots everyday for my homeschool schedule, doTERRA business, blogging, social media, dinner plans, and more. But you can also find a ton of options on Amazon or your local Michaels or Target.

If you don’t want a paper planner, commit to using your phone or computer calendar app religiously.

Set Hours for Your Business

Sit down and figure out how many hours a week you spend building your home business. Do you spend 5 hours a week? 40 hours? Now get out your planner or calendar and choose which hours you will work. If the planner says to work from 9-10am everyday – DO IT. Don’t feel guilty for having the kids play by themselves (independent play is SO important). You set aside this time for your job. Really work during your set hours. And if you want, post your hours so that people know when they can reliably get in touch with you.

In my business (doTERRA), I get questions from customers at all hours of the day. Set rules for yourself. I don’t answer questions while I’m at the dinner table, or after a certain time at night, or while I’m homeschooling my kids. Your friends and family will understand. It’s okay to put your family first. Just make sure that during your working hours that you are 100% doing business building activities.

And note that the less hours your schedule for your home business, the slower you will probably progress. And the more hours you put in, the faster you will rank up. Don’t be upset when you are working 5-10 “real” hours and you aren’t ranking up as fast as people putting in 40-50 hours a week.

Stop “Hanging Out” and Calling it Work

You know what I mean. You jump on Facebook and you hang out in a builder/consultant Facebook group. You chat about the business with people or give other people on cross lines advice. It’s a nice thing to do but it’s NOT a real business building activity. If it doesn’t directly result in supporting your customers or team, it’s not work. Understand the difference.

This also goes for customer groups. You should engage in YOUR customer/VIP groups as much as possible. And if you see your customers or builders asking questions in other groups, by all means help. But if you are spending a lot of time acting like an admin in a group that is NOT yours – it’s not work. I see people answering everyone else’s customer’s questions and calling it work. No it’s not. It’s nice and it’s helping other people but it’s not directly building your team.

I used to do this.^ But I’m in a LOT of essential oil groups. It’s a huge time suck. Set boundaries. I moderate my Oil groups and Facebook Page, and I only help on other pages if I have a new perspective or it’s my own customers asking. You have to be able to recognize the difference. You can get lost forever in all the Facebook groups.

Use Social Media Schedulers

Social Media Schedulers are amazing! I use PostCron for Facebook and Tailwind for Pinterest. I can then schedule out weeks worth of posts during my set business hours. (This link gets you a month free of the service to see if you like it).

Plus this makes your posts more predictable and optimized. I jumped from practically zero monthly Pinterest views to over half a million Pinterest views in just a few months. I did this by scheduling my Pins with Tailwind. (I wrote a post about it here). And here are other programs I use to make my life easier.

Schedule Time for Personal Development

Network Marketing is just Personal Development wrapped in a Compensation Plan.

Set aside 15-30 minutes everyday for Personal development. This will make your time in general more efficient. Make this a priority and do it EVERYDAY.

While you are at it, start with the book “The Miracle Morning.”

 

Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself

Yikes.

Did I just say that?

Yup, that’s the Prickly side of me coming out.

It’s so easy to start feeling sorry for yourself. You feel like the world is falling in around you. But it’s not. 90% of the things in your world are IN YOUR CONTROL. And you have 100% control over how you react to situations.

You decide a lot of your schedule (even if it’s just the time not spent at a out-of-the-home job) and whether you will or will not stick with it. And believe me I get it, life just downright sucks sometimes. It feels like everyone else has it together and no one else has the same struggles. Well, newsflash, we all have struggles. All YOU see are the shiny people at the top of your company with success. What you don’t see is all the struggle and hard work they put in to get there.

Pick yourself up, roll on some motivating essential oils, get some grit, and push forward towards your goals.

Get Help

Sometimes, you still need help even with putting together the best schedule. My job takes a lot of time from me right now. I’m okay with it because I know it’s a sacrifice for the long-term and that I’m building massive residual income. But it’s still hard in the moment.

Consider getting help:

• Hire a weekly babysitter for a few of your business hours.
• Hire a house cleaner for every other week or once a month.
• Get a Meal Plan Service a few nights a week. (Still healthy but it’s one less thing to worry about). Try Hello Fresh (this link gets your $40 off your first delivery).
• Hire a Virtual Assistant – mine has made my life so much easier!!

What are some ways that you’ve better handled time management for your home business? I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts!