4 Ways to Juggle Entrepreneurship & Parenthood Successfully

When people talk about settling down and starting a family, it’s always understood that they would be focusing more on being parent than being a career man or woman.

The point is, people are so used to seeing single entrepreneurs who have all the time in the world for their business. Most believe that entrepreneurship is a huge risk. And that someone who has a commitment to wife and kids can never handle the position.


How to Juggle Entrepreneurship & Parenthood

While many people think both these roles are hard to do side by side, there are some who succeeded and juggled parenthood and entrepreneurship successfully.

How did they do it?

The following is advice from successful parent-preneurs:


1. Prioritize Your Commitments

“Nurture your family as much as you nurture your business. Your business may take care of your family but your family will care about you.” – Brian Gatti of Inspire Business Concepts

With family and work all vying for your attention, how do you know which one to prioritize?

First things first: As a parent, you want to spend most of your time with your child. You want to be with your boy in every of his soccer game. Or with your girl in ever of her ballet recital.

But as a business owner, you also have to shoulder the responsibility of being an entrepreneur if you don’t want to let your clients, partners, and employees down.

So how do you do it?

Be realistic about what you can accomplish. Take the time to plot out the things you need to do at work and at home. Don’t take in more work more than you can handle. There are also times when you need to focus more on your business so you have to make up for the time you lost for your family by scheduling family time on the weekends.
Get involved with your child. Despite being busy, you can still be a good parent by being involved with your child in everything he does. This includes making time to attend his school activities, and making up if you miss one because of a work commitment.
Keep a routine. Routines make everything easier and faster. Find your own time flow where you can work and still spend quality time with your kids as often as they’d like.
Have a back-up plan. Imagine having an important meeting with a client or a work deadline happen during one of those days when your child is sick. Plan beforehand, if you fail to do these things on schedule.
Put important things on your calendar. All the things that have to be done without fail during that date should be scheduled. If it’s not on your calendar, then it’s not something to do.

2. Hack your Time

“I recommend [to] not check your work email 10 minutes before your bedtime, nor 10 minutes before your child will wake up from a nap. You never know what will be in that inbox that may cause excessive excitement or worry regarding your business! Better to leave it for a time when you know you can calmly respond to any pressure from work.” – Arlissa Vaugn, Special Event Painter

Most work-at-home parents often don’t have the time to work for eight hours straight compared to those who work in the office. The good thing is you can always hack your time.

So you can do everything on schedule and get more done even with less working hours.


The following are time hacks you can incorporate on your work day:
Cook for two meals at once so you can simply fridge the other half and have it for the next day.
Shop groceries online and simply pick it up on the store so you don’t waste time shopping.
Do things in batches. For example: commute and reply work emails, water the plants and wash your car.
Have your dry cleaning set to pick-up and delivery.
You can save far more time if you remove distractions while you work.


3. Outsource / delegate work

“As a mama, we try to do it all. But after having twins in 2010, I quickly realized I couldn’t be the mama I wanted to be if I was in front of the computer or on the phone and watching kids at the same time. I found myself completely stressed and overwhelmed, feeling like a failure as a mom and an entrepreneur. Getting childcare, be it a babysitter or a supportive friend, allowed me to finally focus 100% of my energy on my biz when I was working and 100% on my family when I wasn’t.” – Rachel Cook of The Yogipreneur.

Being a parent entrepreneur means that you might not be able to take in important meetings due to family activities. That’s why it’s critical that you train your staff or hire someone to take your place during these episodes.

You can’t do it all alone so you have to ask for other’s help. You should use every kind of tool or opportunity to make everything work easier for you. Here are some ways successful parent entrepreneurs get their work done:
Outsourcing Online – There are many freelance services online like freelancer.com or PeoplePerHour where you can find great freelancers to help you in your business. You can let them do work that takes up too much of your time. Or work that you don’t know how to do like web design, editorial, and content writing.
Get a Virtual Assistant – Hire someone who can help you schedule everything and manage work for you while you’re away from the office. Delegate all petty things so you can free up your mind to deal with the important stuff.
Teach your kids to help – If your kids are old enough you can teach them to do simple things around the house like taking out the trash, doing the dishes, or their own laundry.


4. Grow Your Parents Network

“Focus on money making and network-building tasks first—so for me, fiddling around with where a graphic goes on my website is last, after finishing projects for clients and doing networking activities” – Kathy Catlin Davis of Inspired Abundance

Having children grows your ‘parent network’ as you meet other families through playgroups, school, and your neighborhood.

This helps you earn your place in their community which can be beneficial for you to meet interesting people that can turn into valuable contacts or even partners in business.

Parents that are like-minded in business may turn to each other for advice and strategies in financing.

These parent networking events are great ways to find help in growing your business. You might even find it amazing how other parent’s business ambitions will inspire yours. So take time and grow these parent connections while you bond with your kids.


Summary

At the end of the day, it’s all about reflecting on what’s important to you and finding ways to reach your goals. You can have a multi-billion business and become a committed serial entrepreneur while still getting the award for the best mom/dad in the world.
Are you juggling entrepreneurship and parenting? Leave a comment below.

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5 Tips from Billionaires to Help Achieve High Productivity

There are a ton of viral articles out there that are about “habits of millionaires” or“habits of successful people.”

Quite frankly, they are a bit plain and overdone.


5 Billionaire’s Tips to Achieve High Productivity

This advice comes directly from dozens of interviews and books by billionaires I have consumed. I decided to get advice from only the best of the best.

Here are 5 tips from billionaires on how to achieve high productivity:

1. Keep Your Calendar Simple

Keep your calendar clear and organized. Rather than having hundreds of complicated tasks on there, simplify it to the most important. Drop the rest.

The average person has many low-priority tasks that distract them on their calendar. It’s not a good idea to stuff your calendar with a thousand, small random tasks.

Warren Buffett has mentioned this many times in interviews.

Bill Gates has remarked about how amazing this is after learning it from Warren. Bill has used it himself since then.


2. Do What’s Most Important First

Your most important task should be done first when you start the day.

Average people fill their day with unimportant tasks. The start of their day is filled with tasks that could have gone undone and had minimal impact.

By the end of the day, their most important tasks are still incomplete and often pushed off until tomorrow. This leads to further procrastination and small results.

They were busy but not effective or impactful. You don’t want to be the person who does busywork to look busy rather than strategic, smart work.

Warren Buffett’s pilot, Mike Flint, learned this lesson after talking to Buffett.


Mike learned that the biggest threat to finishing the #1 most important task on your list is #2, #3, #4, #5, and so on. Throw out the other tasks until you finish #1.


3. Delegate Lower Priority Tasks

If your time is worth $50 an hour, every hour you waste doing tasks that can be outsourced for much less is a waste of time.

Do you know why billionaires don’t shop for groceries or cook themselves?

Part of the reason is because they can afford to. But according to billionaires like Richard Branson, part of the reason is because it’s an inefficient use of their time.

According to the book 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, failing to delegate low cost tasks can cost you tons of money.

If your time is worth $1000 an hour, you shouldn’t spend an hour a week buying groceries because you can get the same result in less time and earn more money.

Pay someone $20 an hour to do it for you and spend that time you bought back working. You have now earned $980 after expenses rather than losing an hour doing it yourself without earning anything.

OK, so you might not be making as much as $1000 an hour. But the same thought process can apply to how you spend your time. If your time is worth $25 an hour, how much time are you wasting at work and at home goofing off? 

4. Find Your Peak Performance Environment

People are different. Your most productive environment may be different from someone else’s.

Look for what time of day and what type of surroundings are you most productive in.
For example, some people find that they do the most creative work in loud, crowded coffee shops. Others prefer complete, isolated silence. Some people are most alert and focused in the mornings, while others do better late at night.

Build your environment and schedule to fit your optimal levels of performance.


5. Plan Out What You Will Do

According to the book, top performing billionaires plan out what they will do next ahead of time.

Plan out what you will do tomorrow and the next week. You can save hours of time by working more efficiently from the plans you made.

Without proper planning, your disorganization will cost you efficient moments of optimal workflow.

You’ll be confused and unsure of what to do. You’ll spend extra time trying to figure out what’s more important. You will be dazzled if you get interrupted and unsure where to resume.


Conclusion

There should be no excuses. Anyone is capable of turning these productivity tips into habits. I think the reasons people don’t are the lack of awareness and laziness.

Remember to keep your calendar simple, do what’s most important first, delegate lower priority tasks, find your best environment, and plan out what you will do next.
Are you as productive as a billionaire? Leave a comment below.

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10 Priorities You Should Re-Evaluate to Live a Happier Life

One of my biggest struggles in my day-to-day life is managing my priorities. And by that, I mean I take stuff wayyyy too seriously.

Car bill due? I’m thinking about it all day. Carpet to vacuum? Also on my mental to-do list.

Some people think that keeping these kinds of daily priorities in your mind is an act of mature responsibility. I know I used to.

But, more recently, I’ve been made aware of just how limiting that kind of prioritization can be. Not just to your mental health and your happiness, but it can limit the happiness of important people in your life.

If you spend all your time prioritising your responsibilities, you’re likely ignoring some things that are very important to your life. Like your family, your friends, your “you” time, etc.

The best way to determine if you’ve got your priorities straight is to take some time now and again to re-evaluate them. Below are a few ways that you can start.

#1: Spend as much time as you can doing something you love to do.

Often, we push away our own needs in favour of the needs of our loved ones, such as ageing parents, our spouse or children. While this is a noble practice, we cannot neglect our own bliss in the process. Make it a practice to do something that fuels you as much as you can.

A single mom who works all day and then takes care of her children at night might start to feel depleted. However, if she loves to crochet, this is something she could do for 15 minutes after the kids are in bed. By spending just a little time on herself, she’ll feel a little “fuller” in terms of her own happiness.


#2: Surround yourself with people who want to be happy.

This might sound like a strange request, but it’s important: if you want to be happy, the fastest way is to hang around with people who are happy. In other words, it’s time to distance yourself from emotional vampires. Certainly, you can’t do that 100% of the time, especially if the toxic individuals are your coworkers or relatives, but you can minimise the impact they have on you by minimising your contact with them. Replace them with people who genuinely care about you and want you to lead a fulfilled life.

For example, a man may have an office colleague who enjoys bringing everyone down with his negativity. The man cannot completely cut himself off from this colleague, but he can help bolster himself by starting to form relationships with colleagues who are more positive. Maybe he can even try to use the positive energy he develops to make his negative coworker more positive.


#3: Set some personal goals that will get you closer to where you want to be.

Do you feel as if time is your enemy rather than your friend? Take control of the time you have by setting and accomplishing personal goals. They can be very challenging, such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or quite simple, like saving $100 a month to spend on a beach trip to North Carolina next year. Remember to divide your personal goals into doable “baby steps” and mark off each one you accomplish. If you have setbacks, don’t let them kill your dreams. They’re just tiny bumps in the long road.

Say that a woman age 37 wants to run a marathon before she turns 40. However, she hasn’t run farther than about one mile. Therefore, she starts researching running plans and systematically working her way up to two miles, then three, etc. By the time she’s 39, she’s ready to run a marathon thanks to her methodical planning and small accomplishments!

#4: Stay in the moment whenever you can.

As Ferris Bueller once famously quipped in the 1980s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

While the Bueller character was fictional, his words ring true in the real world. Live each day by being fully in the moment. Resist the urge to be on “auto pilot” throughout your life, and you’ll find yourself feeling happier.

A college student might feel as if he’s always doing something and can’t slow down; he’s always busy. But then he starts to be more purposeful and deliberate. Just for fun, he tries different paths around his campus to get to his classes and winds up having a blast discovering new ways to do the same things. His life becomes about little discoveries, not about boredom.


#5: Start to forgive yourself and others.

It’s hard to be in a happy place when you’re angry or holding on to guilt, frustration and other negative emotions. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being in touch with your feelings, there’s a time and a place to set them free and let them go. If you’re holding grudges, you’re actually hurting yourself more than anyone else.

For example, a woman in her 50s may have been angry with her sister for more than 20 years. The rift has created tension throughout the family. Not a day goes by when the woman doesn’t get furious when thinking about her sister. Through therapy and determination, she starts to let go of the grudge and realises that, while she still doesn’t want to be around her sister, she can stop wasting her time being mad. This enables her to have the freedom to fill her life with positivity.


#6: Get in charge of your health.

Have you allowed your weight or nutritional wellness to get out of control? Happy people are in charge of their health as much as they can be. While this doesn’t mean you have to become a gym rat, you probably can start eating better and enjoying a few exercises. Over time, you’ll feel powerful because you’ll know that you can govern your health.

Say a man in his 40s hears from his doctor that he’s at high risk of having a heart attack due to increased blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Instead of deciding he has no choice in the matter, he immediately begins to evaluate his health. Over a six-month period, he improves his health and lowers his risk factors. He feels strong, fit and happy.


#7: Learn how to delegate.

Your happiness could be as close as asking someone else to help you. Too often, people take on tasks and simply add them to their responsibilities. Eventually, they become slaves to those responsibilities and may start to feel disgruntled. This gets in the way of being satisfied. By delegating some of the tasks to others, the load is lightened and room is made for cheerfulness.

Maybe a mother of three works outside the home but still has the primary responsibility for all the cooking, cleaning and laundry. She feels as if she’s being treated as a maid, and not as a member of the family. Therefore, she begins to delegate some of the tasks she usually does to her spouse and kids. To her surprise, they do a better job in some areas – who knew a teenager could fold laundry so well? – and the household runs more smoothly. Best of all, she feels less “used.”


#8: Look at setbacks as opportunities to grow.

Setbacks in life happen. It’s how we deal with them that sets us apart. If you have something happen that sets you back, use it as a chance to slow down and objectively evaluate what’s going on in your life. Often, it can be a useful sign that something’s amiss and can be altered for the better.

For example, a man in grad school might get a terrible grade on a mid-term paper. He’s discouraged and begins to question his decision to stick with a higher education degree. Before he throws in the towel, though, he starts to look at the reasons he got the bad grade and realises that he didn’t really do the assignment the way it was outlined by the professor. He sees that he wasn’t flawed in the way he wrote the paper, but rather the way he approached the topic. He uses this knowledge to ace future papers in this class, as well as others.


#9: Focus on what’s important to you.

Are you living someone else’s life? You may be if most of your decisions aren’t geared toward what’s really important to you. Take a few days and consider what you hold most dear in life. Are your actions helping you get closer to what’s important? Or are they moving you away? By aligning your actions with what you really want, you’ll find a truer sense of happiness and purpose.

Say a woman has been working at the same company for five years. She realises that there is nowhere for her to go from a promotional standpoint; in fact, she doesn’t feel any passion for the industry. With this realisation, she begins to take steps to get a job in a different field. It takes time, but as she pushes forward, she feels much more in charge of her life. When she lands the right position with the right company, she knows she made a great decision to focus on what was honestly important.


#10: Schedule down time.

There’s a large movement afoot that causes some people to believe that the busier they are, the more important they are. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only does being on the go 24/7 wear you down, but it also cuts into your happiness. While it’s impossible to be in a laid-back state all the time, you can start to schedule some “down time” or “me time” to just breathe and do whatever you want.

Perhaps a man who works in a high-stress field is putting in 70-80 hour work weeks. It’s beginning to eat away at him and he doesn’t like how his daily schedule is overtaking his social and personal life. He begins to add hours in his schedule where client work is not allowed, and he can do anything he wants – even nap! Suddenly, he realises he’s more refreshed when he is on the job, and his life feels more in balance.

To be honest, I still think about my bills and responsibilities, but I try every day to prioritise the things that are truly important and put them ahead of paying the electric bill on time. And guess what – I’m still just as responsible as I was before.

The only difference now is that I’m happier, and the people around me are happier too.

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