Business, Life & Motherhood: My Top Work-Life Balance Tips for Mompreneurs
Apr 18, 2022
I get the same question time and time again, and today – I’m addressing it. The question is: how do I balance everything: business, life, and motherhood? This is a complex topic, but an important one! I’m simplifying it to help you balance it all on your end, so let’s talk more about this below.
I’m covering things like whether or not I have mom guilt, how I let go of perfectionism, and what my “secret” is to doing it all. It’ll be an impactful post, so let’s get started!
Balancing It All With Intentionality
The biggest thing that helps me “do it all” is doing it with intentionality. We focus on this heavily in my courses, and I encourage you to check out my 2022 Intention Setting & Calendar Planning Workshop on my website if this is something you’re looking to do more artfully.
But really, I ask myself a simple question – what do I want and how do I make the time I have fit those goals?
I’m a single mom, and I’m not going to lie – I do a lot. I run a bookkeeping business with 30 clients, a coaching business, show up for my podcast every week, keep my kids fed and happy and alive, play really hard with them, we take vacations – we do life.
BUT, with that being said, there’s really not much that I do alone. I know how important it is to get help, especially in things that I’m not the best at. Alone, you simply can’t always get things done the way you want them to get done.
Once you start getting help and hiring things out, you begin to see the value in it. I promise you, it’ll be SO helpful to your life and business. It will help you grow your business by removing things that will bog you down. I’m diving into how I got started in this below.
Outsourcing Tasks to Buy Back Time
The first thing I outsourced was cleaning my house. I was very pregnant with my second child, and while I felt strange doing it at first, I knew I needed the help. Then, I had one bookkeeping client and I thought -- if I work while the cleaning person is here, I’m literally buying my own time back. So that’s what I did. By doing this, I probably saved myself five hours of cleaning a month (my cleaning woman came twice monthly).
This released a feeling of looming fog and released that mentality of having to do this task. It freed up mental space and allowed me to work with much more focus. What an amazing feeling!
The next person I hired was a babysitter. My second baby was six months old and it was hard for me to do this at the time. I still only had one client, but I needed that time to get the job done and tap into all the passion I had running through my brain. While my babysitter was there, I’d go into my room and work. This allowed me to still be in the house and learn to trust my sitter while also getting my own time.
These two things were huge for me. They didn’t cost too much money and they made a huge difference time-wise. I got back about 28 hours a month, which -- if you read my post about making $10k in 20 hours or less a month – you know that you could actually run a business in that time.
So for you to outsource things successfully, ask yourself:
- What are the things that are stressing me out?
- What do I struggle to get done?
- What are the things I hate doing?
- How can I get these things off my plate?
Outsource them! I outsource a ton now – I have a podcast agency, someone running my Facebook, course designers, two staff bookkeepers, and more. Freeing up that time is huge and when you hire out a task that you’re paid to do, you also ensure you’re not the single point of failure. That goes to say that if you get sick or if something comes up, you have help to back you up.
This is SUCH an important part of doing it all. It helps get stuff done and elevates yourself into the role that you want to fill in your business. You can still do the things you want to do and like to do, though. Simply outsource what works for you and keep what works for you.
If you have this support, all the puzzle pieces you’re keeping in place won’t fall if something comes up - and that’s a beautiful thing.
Letting Go of Perfectionism
Another thing I want to touch on is how I have made the choice to let go of perfectionism. I post Reels that aren’t perfect, I disappear from social media sometimes to prioritize other things, and I do things in a way that is good enough.
Truthfully, no one notices that my business is probably operating at about 70 percent of what it could be. More, better, and perfect are NOT goals. I am here to stay in tune with what I want out of life and build a business that supports that. Plain and simple.
Yes, this is a delicate dance and balance. But you need to figure out what you want in life and protect that. From there, maximize the time you have for your business to make the most of your impact and impact. I also do this in life in general.
Be mindful of what you’re doing and ask yourself – what would happen if I let this time go? What would happen if I let perfectionism go in this aspect of my work or life? I guarantee there are ways to do it and to get valuable time back.
Do I Have Mom Guilt?
A lot of people ask if I have mom guilt. My answer is — don’t we all? Of course I do! But, for me, it’s not about my job. I am so clearly in tune about why I run my business and how I do it that I actually have the opposite from work – I have mom pride.
I run my business the way that I do to get what I want out of life, which is more time with my kids and the ability to be present with them. I want to be able to have experiences with them, take vacations, and so on. Because of that, I say no to a lot of things.
Remember that to do it all, you have to NOT do it all. This is a dance, a practice, and constantly in evolution. But no matter where you are in your journey, you can set out to create a better life, have better experiences, and ensure more presence.
But also remember, if you need to build your business now to work towards that presence, it’s okay. You’re doing it FOR your kids. You’re building the future business you want for them now.
If you’re going through that, I encourage you to think about the thing you want to enjoy with your kids long-term. Find ways to micro-experience them now. If you want to have more flexibility in your life to spend an entire day with them, call in sick to your day job and go to the park all day. That will help get you through from where you are now to where you want to be as you build your own business.
Stay In Tune With Your Goals: The Bottom Line
Through it all, it’s so important to stay in tune with your goals and build your business around that. Remember that you’re creating the life you want to live, so everything should be done with that tenant in mind. From there, you can balance how to do it all, let go of perfectionism, and not have to feel guilty about the way you run your business.
Ready to take action? Apply for the program that's right for you:
If you're looking for more insight on how to become a bookkeeper, and how to say hello to a more confident business model, enroll in Become A Bookkeeper (BABs).
Or to learn more about growing your bookkeeping business and hiring a team, enroll in Life By The Books™ (Libby).
If you have enjoyed this blog post, head on over to Instagram and share your IG stories and tag me, @orderlyaccountingbykatie
