Protect Your Time, Grow Your Bottomline: a Guide for Mommypreneurs
Mothers face unique challenges as entrepreneurs. One, we have to grow our business while juggling caretaker responsibilities. However, we also face a lot of the gendered labor expectations that are placed on women and nonbinary femmes in this society.
If you’re thinking, “Hadiya, what are you talking about?” Check out Arlie Hochschild’s book, “The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home.” Hochschild, who is a sociologist, found that women with careers are often expected to still take on the lion’s share of the domestic work in their home.
This means that we often grow our businesses while still being the primary caretakers for our children, partners, parents, and other family members. Now, I imagine that family might be important to you. So, I want to be mindful and respect your family values as I give you this piece of advice! Please also know that I’m writing this with a lot of love.
If you want to grow your business, you are going to need to dedicate time to working on your business. In order to do that, you’re going to have to set boundaries with the people you love and delegate some of the tasks on your to do list!
As a heart-centered mommypreneur, if you find yourself feeling some resistance to this advice, ask yourself, “why do I feel this way?”
It’s possible that you might feel as though it’s your responsibility to be everything to everybody all of the time. Maybe you got this idea from movies, your childhood, friends, a spouse, a previous boss, or an opinionated in-law. Wherever you got this idea from, it’s important to recognize that this approach can put you on the fast track to burnout and stagnate your profits.
So, here are some thoughts on how you can protect your time so that you can grow your bottomline:
1. Look at everything on your to-do list and ask yourself, whether there’s someone else who can and should perform this task. Tell your kids to wash the dishes. Hire someone to assist if you can afford to do so. Ask your spouse to pitch in with the cooking and rededicate some of this time to growing your business. Rachel Rodgers discusses this quite a bit on her Hello7 blog and podcast. Check out her thoughts on the matter and read “We Should All Be Millionaires” if you need more advice and motivation!
2. Treat your self-care as though it is a nonnegotiable meeting on your calendar. Whether it’s therapy, exercise, a nap, taking a monthly trip to the spa, or having a date night with yourself or a loved one, put it on your calendar and don’t let anyone interrupt you unnecessarily.
3. Make time for what matters most to you! If you want to make sure that you are fully present with your kids, for example, find blocks of time when you can focus fully on being present with the kiddos. If you have regular movie nights, go for walks together, help them with their homework, or find other opportunities for giving your little ones your undivided attention, you and your family will be more understanding when you have to focus on work.
4. Remember your big why? When you’re being interrupted by a friend or family member who wants to bend your ear about something, remember how important it is that you cross some revenue generating activities off your to do list. Tell them you love them but don’t let them interfere with your goals. You can and will call them back when you have some free time.
5. Learn how to do deep work! We learn so much from Cal Newport’s content about remaining focus in a distracted world. He provides so many gems on how to structure your time and communicate with the people around you so that you can be more focused and efficient when you have time to get things done! If it usually takes you 5 hours, for example, to create a proposal for a client while checking social media, answering your mom’s calls, checking your email, and chatting with the person who popped into your office, you may be able to cut that time in half with deep work.
The struggle to strike a balance between growing your business and nurturing your children often means constant negotiation of time, energy, and emotional investments. So, I’m sending you tons of love and wishing you luck! Don’t be shy. Let me know how the mompreneur journey is going.
Need help growing your conscious, purpose-driven brand? Schedule a call with me! I’m Dr. Hadiya Sewer, a decolonial philosopher, serial entrepreneur, and social impact advisor. I offer 1:1 Conscious Business Coaching to entrepreneurs and leaders who want to build 6 & 7 figure purpose-driven brands. Together, we’ll work on defining your values, scaling profits, and maximizing your social impact. Apply to join here!
