Being a work from home mom can be exhausting when you don’t have a plan of attack. Take it from a struggling freelance turned business owner stay at home mom whose two biggest flaws are organization and procrastination.
Having the right tools in your arsenal is the best way to survive the harrowing journey of being a self-employed stay-at-home parent. It’s taken me years to realize that there are things you must have to be successful. And once I started implementing smart tips I’d learned from other expert freelancers, business owners, and entrepreneurs, I started seeing major success in my business.
These days, I’ve launched several brands dedicated to making and promoting resources for other freelance entrepreneurs. And today, I’m sharing five secret weapons any stay at home parent needs to have for a stress-free work schedule.
Secret 1 – Have a Plan and Backups
If you check out trending sales on digital ecommerce stores like Etsy, you’ll quickly realize that one of the top sellers is planners. It’s a proven fact that people love to plan.
The sheer number of options is enough to make anyone’s head spin. And if you end up as a creator of said products, you’ll find a gold mine of an opportunity. Interested in learning to make printables and planners? My favorite resources are
hen you manage your time and your life correctly, you get everything done without stress.
My perfect WFH Small Business Owner Planner is a notebook of various planner sheets in different focuses, guaranteed to manage every aspect of my life. For someone who is the worst at time management, planning, and organization, it took some time to get the hang of putting effort into so much planning. But now, I can’t manage my day without it!
- Hourly planner – for appointments
- Daily planner – for to-dos and tasks
- To-Do list
- Weekly planner
- Monthly calendar
- Holiday planner sheet
- School event sheet
- Kids calendar – for sports, birthday parties, social events, tutoring, doc appointments
- Meal planner
- Shopping list
- Cleaning checklist – daily quickie, one-room deep clean, burst declutters
- Brain dump
- Weekly work plan – research, content creation, marketing, planning, promoting
- Pet care list – grooming, play dates, exercise, checkups, shots, medicines
- Home maintenance – filter changes, pest control, smoke detectors, decluttering
- Health plan – medications, doc visits, period tracker, weight tracker, exercise plan,
- Emergency contact page for the house
- Personal journal
Secret 2 – Build a Support System
Working from home can be a lonely job, especially if you’re an extrovert that thrives on human connections. As an introvert, I thrive when I’m in my comfort zone.
I prefer to stay in my home, in my pj’s, as often as possible. And avoiding people is at the top of my priority list. Yet, I’m also a very social person that enjoys random long talks with people.
My family often jokes that I can make conversation with a light post. And they’re probably right. My empathic nature and strong urge to make the world a better place, even if it’s just by making one person have a good day, drives me to talk to anyone.
I guess the appropriate term is an extroverted introvert – ambivert. I’m also a renaissance mind, meaning I love to learn. I want to know – anything and everything. IDC what it is or what I learn. Maybe that’s why I have a million hobbies.
Secret 4 -Find Your Shortcuts
One resource I’ve discovered in the past few years since we all had to change the way we operate businesses is summits. A summit is like a conference, except hosted online via recorded or live video streams.
A group of industry leaders will get together and share their expertise with registered users based on a set theme. During these events, there are often a lot of free resources given away as a thank you for the attendees.
But the truth is that these free resources are the speakers’ way of luring potential customers into their spiderweb of marketing. In the industry, we call these lead magnets that lead customers into a funnel.
The speaker offers the attendee an awesome gift for showing up, usually a free download. For anyone that signs up to get my weekly email list full of thousands of dollars in free resources, I offer an undated 2023 planner or a single sheet downloadable dog care planner.
Once you have potential clients on your email list, you can start pitching your paid products
There’s No Real Secret to Being a Successful WFH Parent
Although I’ve given you my five “secrets” for being a WFH parent, none of this information is new data. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people out there better than me as WFH entrepreneurs.
And yet, if you follow the journey of twenty random home-based business owners, you’ll see that while everyone has similar advice, our different perspectives and life experiences gives us unique views and approaches. While there are some right moves to make in your business, there is no one right way to do it. It’s about finding what works in your industry and your life.
