Work at Home Productivity Tips –

Creating balance between your family and your business (and you have to squeeze you in there somewhere too!) is of utmost importance to the happiness of your family and the success of your business.

Learning to separate my business and family time, and to schedule in a balanced way when I first started my home business in 2001 were among my biggest challenges.

SHARING MY MISTAKES – SOME PERSONAL HORROR STORIES 

In this week's podcast I share a few of my personal horror stories of a good thing gone wrong, stories that haunt me to this day and spur me on to "get it right", and to share what I learn.

In fact, that is what this whole website it about. Sharing what I've learned over my years working my own business at home.

Sharing my mistakes so that you don't have to make them.

And today's topic is the most important lesson that you will see here.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY NOW 

At the age of 43, there are a few things that I would do differently in looking back on my life. And one of them is what I am talking about today. 

I would have never let my work time overtake my family time.

I had good reasons for having to work hard to make it work, but if I had it to do over, I would have done it in a balanced fashion, even if it took extra effort. 

The biggest loss was time I could have had with my kids, and time they could have had with me. We'll never get that time back.  

When I first started working at home, I worked every minute I could, and peppered my family time in between, thinking that it didn't make any difference what I was doing during "my time". I never took holidays. I never took weekends. In fact I prided myself that I was working through them. 

The problem was that I didn't realize that this polka dot approach was diluting my efforts in both areas.

As for real "me time" – my health and kickback time – was non existent.

I gained weight and became completely out of shape which wouldn't have been so bad if it was "me", but it wasn't.

I had always been athletic and good health had been one of main interests for myself and for my family. I had even studied to become a nutritional consultant and had wanted to open a health food store before I started my online business – which I ironically started so that I would be home for the kids.

NEWSFLASH! MY BUSINESS TOOK MORE TIME THAN I HAD ANTICIPATED 

As it turned out, my business took far more time than I had anticipated, something I'm sure that many of you have figured out by now as well.

I spent all of my days "hitting the ground running" as soon as I could prop my eyes open, and didn't stop until I went to bed late at night. 

I was on constant full out, the days when I could "be in the moment" felt like a dream from long ago.

I was in the house, but I wasn't available most of the time.

I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO MANAGE MY TIME 

I had to learn how to manage my time, and better balance was the thing that made the biggest and most immediate difference.

It isn't easy.

• Sometimes you have to have willpower to put one thing down and move to the next.

• Sometimes you have to say no. 

• You have to set boundaries on your working time. And your family time.

• You have to create "YOU" time, your health… and your life depends on it. The good news is, when you start looking after your health, you have more energy to tackle the rest.

• You have to decide, sometimes minute by minute, what is REALLY important.

Your time with your family is time you will never get back "later".

Your shot at making your business work isn't going to last forever either.

If you are struggling with both and haven't created balanced work hours and made an effort to separate your family time from your work time, I suggest you give it a try today.

BTW, my natural skin care supplies site mentioned in the audio is at DIY Natural Skin Care Supplies or the blog can be found at DIY Natural Skin Care Blog

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

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