Walking the WAHM Tightrope- Balancing Work and Family
No matter what your WAHM profession, one thing is definite- balancing work and family is the equivalent of walking a tightrope. It is imperative to make certain that you tread carefully or you may risk a sudden fall and lose everything. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. With careful planning, plenty of organization, and goal setting you can run your home and business smoothly and efficiently, and leave the tightrope walking to professionals in the circus.
Planning and goal settings are the best tools that work at home moms have at their disposals. It doesn’t matter how organized you are either. Some people are just naturally more organized than others, but even if you run your home and business with a carefree attitude, you can still take steps to bring order into your routine and you’ll see amazing results. Organization and goal setting will not rob your creativity, they will enhance it and ensures that you maximize your time and get the most out of both your family and work time.
You should set daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. It is also a good idea to write your goals down and review them each night. You’d be amazed at how much you can accomplish once you begin taking inventory of your daily activities. When you delegate certain activities to certain time frames, you’ll also ensure that you have plenty of time left for family activities as well. Being a work from home mom has its advantages and disadvantages. Many moms can discover very quickly that it doesn’t take long for the pressures and stress of running both work and family from the same location can have negative consequences. Organization is the best way to ensure that you keep your business and family time separate and watch both grow and thrive.
You’ll find that keeping your work and family life separate is the best policy for ensuring that you remain professional while having the ability to put the role of entrepreneur on the back burner when it is time to spend time as a mother and wife. You’ll also need to realize that no matter how strenuous your day is your children are not interested in you as a business professional. When you are spending time with your children, they are only interested in mom. When you work outside of the home it may be easier to turn off the business persona and step into the mothering role, but you may find this more difficult when a working from home.
Keeping your business limited to your office can help tremendously. For example, if you need to take a business call, keep it limited to your office, don’t take business calls in your kitchen or other rooms of the house where your children are. You’ll also find that if you designate times for working when your children are either sleeping or are being cared for by other people, you will get more accomplished. Learning how to separate your business from your family is the best way to ensure that you can handle the responsibilities of being a work from home mom efficiently.
Marcia Chumbley is a work at home mom and grandmother in Minnesota. She is the owner of a Christian Work From Home Moms and Grandparents web sites at Faithful Grannies .com, WAHM Choices.com (Work At Home Moms Choices) and Work At Home Divas Online Bringing generations of Christian Work From Home Moms, Grandmothers, Parents, Boomers, Crafters and Families together while providing FREE Advertising Networking and Resources, while balancing the work at home experience.