I was listening to a teleseminar the other day and a caller asked how she could do it all. She was a homeschooling mom to two young children, plus starting a WAHM business, plus having to keep up with the housework and have dinner ready for when her husband came home. After hearing her question, I began to wonder if she really could “do it all” and do it all well.
I asked fellow WAHMs on TwitterMoms what advice they would give to a new WAHM trying to do it all, and I received really thoughtful replies. Mary Lutz of Efficient WAHM (and also our Buzz a Mom interviewee this week) said: “RELAX! LOL That would be the first piece of advice. There is no way one can get it all done in a day
She needs to pace herself, spread her schedule out.
I would suggest she create a weekly schedule: One day for housework, 2 to 3 days for building her business and learn to make crock pot meals! My hubby loves them and they allow for your time to be utilized much more efficiently. You can start it in the morning and let it cook all day on low then you’re free to do the other things you need to get done.”
Laura Beth DeHority wrote an article about this topic in her local newspaper entitles Give Yourself Oxygen First. Laura Beth promotes self-care and that if you don’t take care of yourself first, your children are going to be the ones that suffer. There really is a reason the flight attendant says ““In the event that the cabin loses pressure, give yourself oxygen first.”
Erin struggles with trying to do it all and advises other WAHMs to “prioritize and let it go. As any WAHM knows, there are things that you just have to let go – whether for that moment or that day or even that week. Prioritizing will let the less important things stay at the bottom and then you can decide if you truly need to give the dog a bath TODAY or if it can wait until Saturday. ;)
One other very important thing is to make time for yourself or you are going to burn out and fast. Even if it’s just 10 minutes of quiet, alone time, take it. You will go crazy trying to take care of everyone else without taking care of yourself first. :)”
Douglas Penta, MD give us more food for thought: “I wish I had the answer. Balancing a job, child care and keeping up the demands at home every day , is often overwhelming and how this has been often times simply expected of women amazes me. Most men would never be able to keep it up and are all to glad to head out the door in the morning only to return expecting dinner to be waiting for them.
This is clearly a generality as there are many wonderful husbands/partners who do their share and more. However, the problem does exist for many women and I hope to see it change. I think our present economic times are bringing this issue to the forefront as families clearly find a need “more than ever” to work together and appreciate each others contributions.”
The themes in everyone’s responses are, in order to be a successful WAHM you need:
- reasonable expectations
- systems to keep you and your family on track
- to take care of yourself and your needs first
- to have a support system in place
I know WAHMs can successfully homeschool their children, I know WAHMs who are single can homeschool their children and take care of the house (Kelly is a great example, as is Lynn Terry), but in order to be successful, you have to have priorities and reasonable expectations. And so does your entire family.
All the crockpot meals in the world are not going to solve everything if you are not caring for yourself, or if your husband is expecting more than can be done in a single day. Douglas makes the point above that “most men would never be able to keep it up and are all to glad to head out the door in the morning only to return expecting dinner to be waiting for them.”
You also need to have reasonable expectations about your business and what you can achieve in the numbers of hours you can work on it in a week.
If you want to be mega-rich, working on your business has to be the priority. I was listening to the recordings on the
Mom’s Affiliate Expo (if you haven’t invested the $17 in these audios yet, you will definitely want to be doing that
ASAP) and both Lynn Terry and Kelly talk about how much work they did at the beginning of their business. In fact, Lynn worked 16-18 hours a day for the first year!
Everyone in the family has to be on board with the way the family runs. If you have too much on your plate, a schedule isn’t going to help, you need actual help! Help making dinner, help with housekeeping, help with grocery shopping.
If you really want to “do it all”, you have to do it all as a family. If you have a husband or partner, he needs to be supportive of the business you are launching and help pick up the slack in other areas. Your children have to understand that they need to do their school work quietly while you are working, that they need to do chores to contribute to the family, and that mom needs a break from time to time.
Yes, it is possible to do it all, but only as a family. If you try to do it all alone, you will quickly burn out and something will just have to give. Priorities, schedules, meal planning, housework and homeschooling will have to be looked at by the family (doesn’t matter if you are family of 2 or 10) and reasonable expectations and goals must be made. And yes, Mary is right, definitely get a crockpot!
What is your advice for a woman trying to do it all? What has worked for you?
Fri, Mar 6, 2009
Working at Home