Hi Everyone! Mother Earth here:
I am writing this post in response to a prompt from Wendy Piersall at the wildly famous Sparkplugging Blog. She is seeking participants for a group writing project that is fostering the theme:
Crowdsourcing Business How To’s to Help the Work at Home Community. From a rather lofty list of how to’s I picked: Working from Home and Planning a Perfect Day.
Chris Garrett – this is what I was talking about – wink, wink, and it parallels so much of what you share
I virtually met Wendy Piersall a year ago when she was developing her group blog concept. Her blog was actually one of the first blogs I had ever viewed, since then I have enjoyed being a tremendous fan. I got to meet, hug and chat with her a few weeks ago at SOBCon08. I just love her smile and her energy.
Backround Info: I worked from home simply and affectionately, as a mother, for 11 years. It was my chosen profession, I felt blessed that I could be a stay at home mom. My career as a mom would fill a resume a mile long. A resume I’ve never written, in hindsight I wish I had.
When the opportunity came to share nutrition with others, and to build financial security enough so I could leave my first marriage, I found courage and tenacity in places I never knew I had. I talked to complete strangers. I sold something. I launched my business very much like the birth of a child – gee something I could relate to - The birth of this business being the goal. I began building my client base one person at a time. My business model was sharing, educating and learning. If there was something I didn’t know I asked someone who knew. This was back in the dark ages before I had the courage to use the internet. Methodically my business grew and grew. I believe my sincerity, my belief in health and well being, and my fierce determination helped me get where I wanted to go. From a business perspective things like filing, gathering resources, book keeping were all completely beyond me. I had to scramble to learn that too. Three years in, I had tripled my income. I was a local nutrition rock star! My office was a complete nightmare. My business woman etiquette was completely whacked. I was beginning to seriously juggle day to day living with the running of a business. My biggest problem was everyone knew that I was juggling. I couldn’t stop talking about it. Ever meet someone who rattles off their entire day of appts and things to do ?? Including when johnny has soccer practice and about the load of laundry they had to get done? A client has to listen to all of that in order to set up an appointment with me? Not good. I was not portraying a business professional. I was portraying a scared about to be divorced crazy person, I was operating my business by the seat of my pants
Desperately I sought business mentorship from those who seemingly had it together, I laugh now at what they shared:
1. Fake it until you make it!
2. It’s your business, what do you want it to look like?
3. Plan. Plan everything.
The Week at a Glance: With those three things in mind I began to make business and life decisions utilizing something called The Week at a Glance. This is a blank strategy sheet designed to have you SEE your week, your life, your ideas, your work – one week at a time. I combined all my needs for my work, my family and me, all one one piece of paper and planned the absolute most perfect day. I established working hours. I asked myself things like when do I want to exercise, when do I want to journal, when is good day to do laundry ( why ? ) I established a litter box cleaning day. I put in my weekly meetings, my courtesy phone calls. When should I do my month end mailing? I added a specific day to pay the bills. I was clear that on Wednesday’s my work commitments were a bit light, so I devoted that day to my school volunteering. I wrote down kids activities too. I declared Monday an official pajama working day. Something I still do 12 years later! A day devoted to planning my week, securing or making my appts, one day a week to get the rest of the week in tip-top order. I planned when it was time to start dinner – I found if my commitment to home cooking was important to me then I best allow time to make dinner. Most days at 4:30 you will find me making dinner. I decided to devote 2 evenings a week to work. I even planned when I would write my grocery list and plan my menu’s for the week.
Will it work – this perfect day, this perfect week ? If I fit everything in – it was very easy to see the spare time I thought I didn’t have. Or it was easy to see the bottlenecks or times I overbooked or planned poorly. Once I could see my life on paper. I could make sense of it. Then I could speak it. Because I slotted Thursday as the day to make calls I could professionally say to a client; I am making calls Thursday are you available at 9:30 ? Oh – you prefer an evening appointment? I could easily then say well this week my evening availability is this… because I had decided that week what my evening would be. The beauty of what I called designing my business and home practices was it was nothing more than a blank piece of paper. If the design wasn’t working out – I could crumple it up ( or recycle it and use the back side!) and re-design it. Did it work? It was magical how much it worked.
If I was a total tech geek a sample of the week at a glance sheet would go here. ugh
The Beauty of It All: The beauty of it all is that some of the business practices I put in place 12 years ago are the crux of my work smart and part time business strategy this very day. Things like: when should my newsletter go out, what monthly marketing strategy should I implement, what four product of the week emails should follow. They work beautifully. All of this was based on the premise “it’s your business, what do you want it to look like?” and planning an absolutely perfect day. What would you design as a perfect week if you could? A perfect day? Why would it be perfect ?
Men do it differently. The guys I have taught this methodology to sometimes have to think of it differently. They often are single task minded. Chunking tasks down seems to make more sense. Give them the entire to do list and ask them to slot it into a time frame works better for them. Ask them to create the list of to do’s and sometimes they become perplexed. Be careful if you add a new thing too quickly. Men juggling sometimes isn’t pretty. I don’t say this to be disrespectful. It’s an observation. Woman think multi-taskfully – it’s the way we are wired, we wonder when am I going to get that meatloaf into the oven if a soccer practice falls into the making dinner time frame. Guys are not as automatic. The many men I have coached through this process have really loved it.
Recap: I choose to write about this topic because I am now at a new and wonderful crossroads. Blogging is becoming more than I bargained for timewise and passionwise – I love it as much as I love my nutrition consulting. My dishes should really be managed. They will sit until tomorrow morning. Laundry is done, but it’s not put away. I really really need to grocery shop. Do you hear me telling you my burdens? Single again I feel completely stopped by the solo caring of the home, meals and work load. This to me is a total business no – no. I don’t want to sound or portray that I am scared or overwhelmed. I need to really apply the same principles that I had years ago to what I am up to now. I am back to operating by the seat of my pants! I haven’t practically looked at the time I am spending blogging. Partly I think because I didn’t want to know. The simple fact is I have to decide what time is the perfect amount of time so that all the other areas of my life don’t suffer. Thank you Wendy for giving me this opportunity.
Planning a Perfect Bloggy Day: Seemingly this is beginning to happen – After SOBCon08 I wrote a 90 day Blog plan. Last month I did a recap of my posts and found I had given 50% of my posts to the theme I had set for myself. I really enjoyed looking back. That month end recap is going to stay. I am spending an hour a day on posting , and an hour or so reading and commenting on other blogs. I’m OK with that. It’s when two hours turn into 4 that I have to draw the line.
Woulda Coulda Shoulda’s: One final thought about planning a perfect day. Things to do fall into four categories. I should have, I need to, I want to or I choose to. Which do you think is the most productive? If I say I want to write one blog post a day and I am giving myself an hour to do it. It’s much better than I need to do it. If you say you want to …it’s a gift. If you say you need to…it’s a bit whiney. If you say you should and you don’t – it becomes guilt ridden. Choosing is a declaration. A positive one! Do your life, your perfect day and your work because you want to and choose to!
I close with this quote, an excerpt from 10 rules of Thoughtmanship written in the early 1900’s by the founder of my company
“Live in the joyful Now. Plan for a happy future, but make sure that you develop the habit of enjoying the present. Your future happiness depends upon the thoughts you produce today. There is no time like the PLEASANT one. You cannot alter the happenings of yesterday, so why allow worry over them to destroy the happiness of today? Never allow the past to defeat the present. Learn how to live this day to the full, and you will get greater enjoyment in living the tomorrows as they become the present.”
Happy perfect day!
this is my idea of a place to create a plan flickr image credit
Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
Matthew Gedeon
Luke Gedeon
Karen Hanrahan
6 Comments
Karen, I love, love, love this post. It gives me hope, because I am so flying by the seat of my pants right now trying to juggle three different jobs and figure out what the next step is. I’m disorganized, and you’re giving me hope that I can change.
OOOH I LOVE that this offered you hope Karen. Get that blank piece of paper my dear and start playing!! I promise that seeing it, planning it and implementing it makes it real. I know you can figure it out.
Karen — Great post! Lots of wisdom in there. And great to learn all the ways you masterfully juggle.
Thank you. I love that you found a pearl of wisdom or two! Do you juggle things too? Is it always that way?
Yep, I think every single one of us “juggles”! It’s just that some people learned “how to juggle Time, Money and Commitments” in the cradle, and thus, may not even realize what they do every day; the rest of us are *just now* recognizing the vast holes in our education/experience! (And the *true cost* of those holes!)Karen ~ Kin I swipe this plan, wholesale, for *my* personal re-invention? You’ve done an excellent job of Showing (not just Telling) your How, What and Why. Even reading it just once (so far) has already cleared up points of confusion in my head!Thank You for being so very Giving ~ you will receive back a hundred-fold from the Cosmos!Bright Blessings!!!!Karen J.
someone gave me the gift of a week at glance 12 yrs ago, I’d be thrilled if you could find a way to utilize it too – please swipe away and be sure to create the very best work day, week that you possibly can!