Striving for Work Life Balance

I love working from home. Let’s just get that out in the open first. It has not been easy but I’ve enjoyed every moment of it, even the chaos I experienced when I first started my business. I’ll give you a little history first so you know a little about me and why I love what I do. It was a lifelong dream of mine to own my own business. I researched different business ventures but found nothing that spoke to my spirit enough for me to give up my full time job. I neatly tucked away the idea of owning my own business making a mental note to revisit it in sometime in the future. Well the future came more quickly than I imagined when the two pink lines on the home pregnancy test announced that my husband and I were going to be parents. I knew in that moment that I wanted to be home to care for my child. To be the one responsible for shaping the person he would become. I wanted to be there first hand to share each milestone and enjoy that precious time I would never be able to get back. I went back to researching business ventures and discovered the virtual assistance industry from an article in Parents Magazine. The article seemed to have been written just for me and I knew I found exactly what I wanted to do. At the time my son was 6 months and I was busy researching the virtual assistance industry in order to launch a successful business. It never occurred to me at the time that my business would take off quickly and I would have a thriving virtual assistance firm in just three short months. Initially, I wasn’t prepared for the quick success and my home life suffered. My house was a wreck, my husband would come home from work and I wouldn’t have dinner prepared and my toddler son was watching way too much television. Ask any mom and she’ll tell you it takes a lot of hard work and love to run a household. Surprisingly enough, it’s takes those same ingredients to run a successful small business. Maybe that’s why we’ve seen an increase in the number of moms venturing into the world of entrepreneurship. Hard work and love are no stranger to any mom who’s running a household or a business. Where things tend to get a little sticky is when we try to be successful at both. Work life balance isn’t just some trendy catch phrase. It’s actually a healthy way of life for the busy mompreneur. When you work from home it’s very easy to get sucked into all the housework that needs to be done. I have a toddler and he is nonstop action from the time he gets up until it’s time to go to bed. I spend most of my day running after, playing with and teaching him new things. I also own my own business and have to make time to get business things done during the day as well. Of course I also have the normal household chores to do like cleaning, laundry, making dinner and grocery shopping. Having a set schedule is advantageous to making business and home life gel together. I have a schedule for the week that I prepare on Sunday nights and I prepare a to do list each morning. I have set times to check my email. I make all my business related calls during his 2 hour midday nap. I do some of my client work in the late afternoon. After I’ve had dinner with my family, put my son to bed for the evening and spend some quality time with my husband, I work well into the late evening early morning. That is why having a schedule is so important. I don’t feel stressed or overworked. That’s not to say I’m not busy, but having a set schedule allows me to manage my workload in a manner that doesn’t make my life crazy. It is also necessary to note that “set schedule” doesn’t mean written in stone. Flexibility is an important aspect to life in general not just home life and business. So don’t be tied to your schedule. Use it as a guide because you may need to juggle some things around from time to time. Remember why you went into business. I suspect it was for the same reason I did. You want to be your own boss and you want to spend more time with your family. Practicing work life balance will ensure you do just that…live a life of balance in your home, your family and your business.

Yamisi Daniel, REPA, owner of InTouch Virtual Assistance offers administrative, personal assistant, event planning and real estate support services to busy professionals, entrepreneurs, small business owners. For more information, please visit http://www.intouchva.com.



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