In 1999 after two years of marriage and 15 years of working for someone else in the administrative field, my business, Quality Office Assistance, was born. Thirteen years later I am so glad I made that decision. It hasn’t always been easy but I know that it would have been harder to balance my work life with my family life had I continued that path.
With that said my best strategy for balancing my home business needs and my family’s needs has been to plan my day according to my children’s schedules and doing this each day.
When the bulk of my business was transcription I had older kids at home with varying sports, music and school schedules. When I had a job come in I would figure out how long it was going to take, look through the day and see which blocks of time I could commit to work. And I will admit that some days didn’t flow as easily as others and my kids would comment on my mood. But each day is a new day and we can start over.
Currently the bulk of my business is bookkeeping. I have one major client and I do most of their work from home with one or two days a month of traveling to the office. My two older kids are adults and I have a 3 ½-year-old at home. She, obviously, doesn’t have such a busy schedule and there are days I don’t leave the house. She is a night owl and so we both get up around 9 am. After getting her dressed for the day we spend some time playing and then I spend time working while she plays independently. During naptime I have uninterrupted time to work. She goes to bed at 10 pm and then I stay up for a couple more hours working, again uninterrupted.
I am fortunate that my husband is also self-employed, mostly working from home, so he is able to help as the needs arise. But if he was working outside the home, I would probably on occasion hire someone to watch my daughter if I needed more focused time to work or for the days I need to go to the office.
For me balancing business needs and family needs are all about scheduling each day specifically. I know how much time I can handle working and stick to that.
Linda is a stay-at-home mom who blogs at Hanging By Fingernails and is the
owner of Quality Office Assistance . She loves to read and spend time with her family. I hope you’ll stop by her blog and say hi!
This was great insight. How blessed you are (and your little girl) for both you and your husband to work from home. I also come from a background of admin asst, and had at one point wanted to open a similar business from home, but our financial situation has changed, so I no longer need to consider working at this point in time.