Child out the door for 30mins… and go!
You could do the washing / clean the kitchen / prepare a meal or… you could be entirely selfish (?!) and work on your business.
No longer can you wait around for inspiration to hit, or put things off until after lunch. You have been given time and the time is now.
I’ve been doing this since my daughter was about three months old (she’s now 2 and a half). While the mantra is ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ all of a sudden, you have emails to respond to, blog posts to write, social media updates to load… and no ‘time’ to do it in. I also found it quite inspiring, all that time you’re sitting around breast feeding. Of course, I was pondering the beauty and amazingness of your child (or hoping like fuck they’re going to sleep after) but you’re also just sitting around.
I would come up with what I thought were pretty darn good Instagram posts during this time and my favourite would be to schedule them for when I was already asleep at night using Grum.co. I’d then wake up and see a bunch of likes and comments that I was rather late in responding to. I’d also use the time when she fell asleep on me to find new accounts and build our following in that way.
’m not going to say that I was truly a phenomenal business woman. I still managed to get through a few Netflix series, but I do thank running a business for keeping me sane.
I’d call my business partner to discuss things, and would be changing nappies while we talked (something about Angela’s Scottish lilt really got the bowels moving). Having a business partner definitely helped cashflow coming in, but it also meant that I had time to work on other business development ideas while she did the client facing work.
Once the government maternity leave finished, I was then on ‘unpaid’ leave for another 12 months until we managed to get our daughter into daycare. Sure I was able to earn a small wage here and there, but not doing client work allowed me to –
- Create & run a 4 part webinar series which resulted in my business partner speaking at ProBlogger & us running a workshop together
- Launching an online course teaching people Facebook Ads
- Develop a 4 city national workshop tour
- Run a workshop in Adelaide & be a special guest at one on the Gold Coast
- Attend ProBlogger conference and a lady biz boss weekend
Another hack that I learnt early on was listening to podcasts while I walked to get my daughter to sleep. Not just any podcasts, business podcasts that would have me stopping in the middle of the street to write notes, or coming up with crazy ideas while I sipped my latte.
When you become a mum you end up with more time than you’ve ever had but also less. All of a sudden you don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time but you also have not a second to spare. It’s a constant juggle between guilt and love, you and them, your family and your business
And my advice is, if you get that hour use it. Your floors will get dirty again soon, or invest in a cleaner. Your brain needs love too and while I love my daughter as much as the next mum, I think that my business needs love too.
I do love the quote that we have just as many hours in the day as Beyonce, but Beyonce also has an army of helpers. It’s time to use the hours that you have, even if it’s only 30mins.
Other favourite quotes that come to mind are ‘work expands to fill the time allocated to it’ so if you only have so much time, you therefore need to be ridiculously organised to make it work.
And another favourite… Just do the work. Don’t think about it. Don’t stress on it. Don’t think about what if. You don’t have time. It’s now or never.
Do the freaking work.
