HOW TO STAY SANE WHILE YOU KEEP A BUSINESS, A FAMILY AND ALL YOUR OTHER BALLS IN THE AIR!

So you’ve decided that you want to launch a business?  Welcome to the path many women take when they become mothers.  It seems we’re not content with feeding, washing, sterilizing and all the other jobs that come with being a mum, we want to conquer the world of business too! 

Well, it’s no easy task but it can be done, as many mums are proving on a daily basis, but when things get a bit hairy and you’re pulling tufts of rapidly-graying hair out of your head, remember these tips on how to stay sane.

• Make sure you’re passionate about your business.  If you aren’t, you will find it very difficult to force yourself to find the time to do the necessary work to build/maintain it and will probably end up beating yourself up for not being committed. 

• Go in with your eyes open.  Speak to other mums about how many hours a day they spend running their businesses, how much money they spend, how much free time they get.  The fact that businesses are flexible is a very attractive option for mums with kids but the fact is you will probably do more work than a part-time job, at worse hours and you will probably get paid a lot less in the first few years.  If you’re expecting it, life as a mumpreneur won’t be as much of a shock.

• Be realistic about how much time you have.  Try logging everything you do in a day (for a few days) including going to the loo, driving back and forth from school and venues, shopping, cleaning etc etc and work out how much time you really have for a business.  As mums tend to underestimate how much they do in a day, it will be a great cause of stress when you add a business and find you don’t have time for anything.

• Use the log completed above to work out what tasks in a day you can do more efficiently, you can delegate or you can simply stop doing to make time for your business and decrease the stress of having to do everything.

• Draw up a list of your priorities in life and number them; with your highest priority at 1 and so on.  Try and divide your week/month to reflect your priorities, with 1 getting the most time or the most quality time.  This will reduce stress as, once allocated, you’ll be ensuring you’re giving time to those things in your life that mean the most.

• Have a good business plan.  Having a good business plan will keep you on track with your business and make you less likely to stray to time-wasting activities.  Review your business plan on a regular basis to ensure you are on track or update it to reflect your new direction.

• Plan your day the night before.  Before you go to bed, plan your day to ensure as soon as you get up you know what you need to do.  Include things you need to do for your family, your business and you.  Tackle unsavoury jobs by planning to do them when it works best for you i.e. first thing, before a treat or when your energy levels are highest.

• Get help! Many mums I know are loathe to get others on board or are ‘too busy’ but both attitudes only serve to create greater stress.  If your business was launched to earn money, then the only way to do that if things are getting too much is farm out work.  If you are dragging your heels on this then remind yourself that this is a business and the definition of business is ‘a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern’.  Your ‘baby’ is the little bundle of joy currently asleep in their cot.  Don’t confuse the two!      

• If you are feeling stressed, take the time to sit down and try and work out the root of the feeling.  You may find the cause of the stress is emotional, rather than physical i.e. your expectations of yourself as a wife, mother or mumpreneur are too high.  Try to reframe the situation by talking to other Mumpreneurs or a life coach for mums (like myself). 

• Spending money on training or mentoring will also reduce stress.  As beneficial as it is being frugal when starting out, spending money on training or mentoring will save you hours trying to do it yourself and free you up to concentrate on running your business. 

Top Tips brought to you by

Alli Price - An Aussie living in London. She has been a marketing manager of a 4* hotel, a production manager making TV commercials and short films, a waitress and bartender and a backpacker for five years. She has a 3 year old daughter and a new baby girl and a fab, supportive partner.

Initially only a coaching business for mums, Alli quickly realised how isolating it was to work from home whilst looking after her first daughter.

Following the incredible response to both programs, Alli relaunched Motivating Mum (www.motivatingmum.co.uk) in Jan 2010 to extend further support and advice to mums in business.  Additional initiatives included Mentoring Mum (http://www.motivatingmum.co.uk/mentoring-mum), where mums across the UK can get phone mentoring from high-profile Mumpreneurs like Rachel Jones of Totseat and Diary Management Mum (http://www.motivatingmum.co.uk/diary-management-mum) where mums get practical help with getting everything into their day.