I often say that as women we are pulled in a million different directions based on whatever is screaming the loudest. More times than I’d like to admit, it has left me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Between my business, my two special needs children, my marriage and general household duties, some days there is a lot vying for my attention.
I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that I was going to need to lean on people in order to get it all done. Not someone who finds it easy to ask for help, over the years I’ve gotten pretty good about finding creative ways to manage everything I need to get done in the limited amount of time I have.
My biggest tip for those looking to do the same is: You need to outsource.
A creative way to manage your time and To-Do List
In order to have profitable businesses, we should be spending most of our time each day doing what we are great. The tasks and skill set that makes up our Zone of Excellence is what our clients pay us for, after all. But what about all of the other things that need to be done as part of running our business?
It can be hard to strike the right balance between working IN your business (completing the job your clients hire you for) and working ON your business (think administration, marketing and business development) – especially when it’s just you wearing all of the hats. Not yet quite ready to hire an employee, in years past, business owners had to tough it out in this land of limbo until budget caught up with work load.
However, that’s not the norm anymore. With the rise of remote working, more business owners are opting to run their business out of their homes and outsource the overflow work wherever possible; freeing up more time to work in their Zone of Excellence and saving on overhead costs.
If you’re just outsourcing business tasks, you’re not doing it right
When we think of outsourcing, our minds generally go straight to business tasks. During a discussion with anyone of my busy boss-mom clients, they can list off a number of business tasks they feel they should be sending to someone else to complete. I get it. As a mompreneur, who is homeschooling her children while running a business, my kitchen table often doubles as my office, and I have some remote contractors and virtual assistants helping me as I go.
But to stop at business tasks is to do yourself a disservice. In my business, I can’t outsource much; I’m the business strategist. I am the business. So I had to begin to think outside of my business tasks and start taking a closer look at the tasks in my personal life that could be handled by others.
The usual ones came up (i.e. housekeeping), but I pushed myself to dig deeper.
Here are a few others that I found:
- Shop for groceries online and utilize ‘in the parking lot’ pick-up options now
offered by stores like Zehrs.
- Make the local play place your office for the morning so you can work while you children are entertained
- List of chores that can be done by your children with some training (i.e. my daughter has been putting her own laundry away since she was three)
- Kid friendly meetings where mompreneurs can network and collaborate while our children play
- Laundry services that will take your laundry, wash it and bring it back dry and folded
- Because I am a night owl, I outsourced bedtime routine to Dad so that I could work uninterrupted from shortly after dinner until my bedtime.
Samantha King is a busy mompreneur and homeschooler with two young children and a couple of businesses at home. When Samantha’s daughter was diagnosed with autism, she had to learn how to keep her priorities aligned within her family, while operating her business at the same time. She is excited to share her knowledge to empower entrepreneurs by giving them the tools they need to do something they love while building sustainable, profitable businesses.
Contact Samantha:
Tel: 416-885-6841
Email: samantha@fempirebuilders.com
Facebook: @FempireBuilders
Twitter: @FempireBuilders
Instagram: @Fempire_Builders
