Anyone who is a working mom, whether inside or outside the home, knows that organization is the key to survival. As a homeschooling mom working from home, as well as away from home, I’ve had to get a little creative to make my business and family work.
First of all, you need to involve your family in your business. In my Avon business, this was very easy. Homeschoolers need fitness classes. My sons are some of the best runners I have ever seen. They bring books to doors, wheel wagons up driveways, and get plenty of exercise delivering books and orders for me. To reward them we are all going for a swim after all that running exercise. Also, I started giving my kids “Avon Bucks” in lieu of an allowance. They can use their money to buy whatever they want from my catalogues. It teaches them to budget and save for the things they want, and it doesn’t cost as much to reward them for their efforts. Now that I am expanding and have started two other businesses in addition to my Avon business, they are very excited. Once your children, spouse, or significant others see the benefits of your business, they will be happy to help.
Meal planning used to be a big challenge for me. I have a house full of picky eaters. For a year, I had a different kid cook dinner with me every night (7 kids, 7 nights) and within a year, everyone, even the little ones, could cook a simple meal. Now I only cook on my day off or on major holidays. The rest of the time the older kids take turns cooking, and Dad and Uncle Greg cook on the weekends.
We have a VERY big house because we have a very big family. With two dogs, seven kids, an uncle, and four bathrooms, it can get really messy. We have a chore chart and everyone has chores to do. Failure to do your homework results in a loss of privileges. When everyone does their chores, the house runs smoothly. I’m in charge of finances (because I’m an accountant), laundry (because I like to do it), and shopping for our home. I do a load of laundry early in the morning (5:00 am) and one load late at night (10:00 pm). Even with our large family, it never backs down, except when we come back from vacation. We take our 15 passenger van once a week and do most of our shopping at Sam’s Club.
Still, you might wonder, how do you work part-time, homeschool, and run three businesses? I am the queen of programming. I live and die according to my schedule. If there’s a game, cheer practice, dentist or orthodontist appointment, you’d better put it on my schedule. My family knows that if it’s not on my agenda, it doesn’t exist. We have a very routine-oriented life. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I work as a bean counter at the local animal shelter. I’m in and out before most of my family is out of bed. From Tuesday to Friday we are at my Avon Licensed Beauty Center. We do a full week of school work in the back room. My teenage sons who work with me do their homework up front and call me if they need help with a client. I work with the rest in the back. When school is over, they go home to play and have dinner. During the night when the store is slow I work on my other two businesses (both computer based) and the book I am writing. On Mondays we do our shopping, deliver books and orders, and find an educational excursion to include in our travels. Our vacations are always educational and double as excursions. Our school work and student portfolios are also very organized.
For those of you who are tired just reading this, let me just say that I wasn’t always this organized. I used a combination of Teri Maxwell’s “Managers of Your Homes,” http://www.Titus2.com, and St. Benedict’s Rule for Community Living to bring us to this organizing point. At a time when we adopted 4 children at once, our hallway was a giant schedule board. We have evolved since then, but I will always be grateful to Teri Maxwell and St. Benedict for teaching me how to manage my time and my home.