TIME MANAGEMENT

Ahh the fun of time management...for the self employed its a must, especially for the work at home self employed.

This area has never been a strength for me but I have to say since becoming self employed I have really gotten better at it....because I have to.

Its taken me a month and a half to finally find a rhythm and a schedule that works and that I feel I get the maximum benefit from. Its been a bit a challenge because I'm home with my two little monsters so I don't really have a large chunk of time during the day to work. In the beginning I was still trying to do a lot during the day and be mommy to the kids. There really wasn't a plan I just tried to get as much done during the day as I do at night. But it just left me frustrated and feeling like I wasn't accomplishing anything in either area. I finally came to the realization that your days are going to be similar to when you had a day job, most of your day will be spent on things other than your business. The evenings will continue to be your peek time. But unlike my schedule with my former job I have the flexibility to work during the day if I have the chance. 

Summers are the busiest time for my husband at work but he usually doesn't have to leave the house until 8am and for this family of early risers, it leaves times for me to get a little workout in and then my husband normally wrangles the kids until he has to leave which gives me a couple of hours in the morning to work.

I start my day by reviewing the list of what I want/need to get done (usually I try to make the list the night before). Most of my creative work happens at night, when I have a large uninterrupted chunk of time. During the day my focus is foremost on answering emails and getting proofs completed/orders out. The remainder of time and focus is on doing a FB post or two, if I have something to blog about I will try to get that organized or right now it's researching information regarding starting my own website as another avenue to my Etsy shops.

Bseecau two of my 3 shops are still newer I am trying to build inventory so the amount of hours I spend working each day is pretty important. To feel like I am on track I need to have at least half of my day devoted to creating. Because my day is so broken up remembering how much time I spent on certain tasks is hard, so I actually made myself a little time card. It helps me for right now know I am putting the right amount of time in to get new items created and into the shop.

Getting my schedule down is an ever evolving thing but for now I think I have a schedule that works best for me and my family.

How do you schedule your day for maximum benefit?