Making the Most of Your Time | Girl Boss

Y'all ... I have a problem with staying on task.

I guess you could say I'm ADD. 

Maybe that's where my kid got the craziness ....

NO...

No, he got that from his father.

I swear it. Never from me. I'm awesome and perfect.

LOL

I digress.

Anyway, ... wait see? I can't even keep my thoughts straight in this damn blog! ha!

Today I tried something new. I decided to set my phone alarm to keep me on track. Sometimes All the time, when I'm on the computer, I seem to bounce from one task to another.

I'll be editing, then I'll check Facebook, then 15 minutes lost, I'll get back to editing. Then I get bored and start something personal, then 30 mins lost, I'll get back to editing or what the hell, I'll switch to blogging. And by the time I know it, the eldest is home and the baby is awake from the nap and now I'm juggling afternoon snacks and telling the baby to stop messing with my photo props, and eldest that no, he cannot play the xbox until his homework is down and then ....

SHIT.

I forgot to thaw the meat for dinner. And oh by the way, the editing that was due today is not done and now I have to spend the evening away from the family to finish editing and get the gallery up for the wonderful family that hired me but now I'm not close to my family because I'm locked in the dark making some other family happy.

Exhausting, right?

I mean, everyone makes being a work-at-home mom seem so simple. In actuality, it's not. When you go to an office, you're family is already taken care of. Whether they're at school or daycare. You are not interrupted by crying, hungry babies or angry, hormonal kids not wanting to do homework. You are in an office with other people who are stuck in an office doing their jobs. So more than likely, you can get your job done and complete, minus the phone calls or noisy co-workers.

Work-at-home moms rock because they still have to do laundry, watch the kids, make dinner and all that jazz. And that my dear friends, is why nap time is so extra special to work-at-home moms so you HAVE to be able to manage it perfectly.

So the thing I did differently, as I mentioned above before I went on my soap-box, was that I timed my "nap-time work schedule." My littlest sleeps from about noon to 3pm. So that gives me three hours to get shit done. Today I still multi-tasked but this time I timed it.

When I put the baby down for nap at noon, I threw in a load of laundry. Then I got to work at catching up on a personal photo album since, surprise! As a photographer, your own photography gets pushed to the side (i.e. editing vacations, scrapbooking, printing, hanging...ect). So, one of my goals is to catch up on my photo albums. For an hour I did just that using, Shutterfly. Then at 1pm, I began to edit client work. I did about 30 mins of one client and 30 mins of another client. That got me about 20 images, give or take, on each client done. Basically, they're almost complete. 

Then at 2pm (after throwing the wet clothes into the dryer), I forced myself to come on here and blog. Why do I say forced? Because Facebook was REALLY calling my name ... so I cheated a tad and looked on Facebook for about 10 minutes ... this is why I am now whisking through this blog hopefully not too crazily because when my "For Real STOP!" Alarm goes off, I HAVE to stop because a) my eldest comes home from school and b) if I don't wake the baby from his nap by 3pm, he won't sleep at night. GAH! 

The struggle is real folks.

And there it goes, my alarm. So I HAVE to get off people. So hopefully maybe this blog will give you a little insight in work-at-home moms. I don't want to scare you off entrepreneurs. 

I don't. 

Because seriously, working for myself is the best decision I've made. Seriously. I hate to think about working for someone else and on their schedule. I can take vacation whenever I want. I can stay home with the kids. I can partake in school activities and I can have weekends to enjoy family instead of catching up on household issues. 

Guys, be your own boss. But just realize that you'll probably work more hours in the day/night and your boss is the biggest bitch out there. ;) I'm telling ya.

Good luck y'all!