An End Time to My Work Day

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is how do you do it all? At first, I would stumble around all the usual answers: I delegate. I am really organzied. I have a terrific team. Then I took a minute and really thought about it. I think the secret of running a business as a mother is that I just do as much as I can — and then not beat myself up if I don’t do as much as I wanted.

After taking all these time-management courses, reading books, and talking to professionals I realized one thing: we all have the same total amount of hours. It’s what you do with those hours that determine how much you get done and, more important, how satisfied you are with your life.

Let's say you sleep for seven hours a night. Right there, that takes out 35 of the 168 hours in your week. Add in three hours for the kids each day, eight hours on my business...there goes another 51. Wow! Got 72 left, let's see...grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, cooking -- how about three hours per day, so another 21 gone. Still got 51 left. Driving! Oh my God, driving... to dance class, to soccer practice, spanish lessons, to the train to pick up my husband -- that's at least another 90 minutes in the car per day. Down to 41. Baths, homework, getting my son new hockey gear. The dogs...feeding, bathing, walking and playing -- we are at 31. Taking my mother shopping, helping my dad with the lawn -- 25. Eating the famliy dinner just one night a week -- there goes another 7. And one hour watching The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, and I'm basically out of time. No wonder my hair is never fixed.

When I do this, I realize how much I get done in one small week. And how little time we really have. About once a month, I pull an all nighter to get caught up on my work. Catch up on on-line shopping and shipping for birthdays and holidays. Sometimes I sit in my home office and stare at the fish tank into the wee hours of the morning while I clean and back up my computers.

Despite all this, I make a concerted effort to be done by 5:30 p.m. in my office. I try to go out to dinner with my husband twice a month. I try to get together with girlfriends for a game night. When I leave my home office, I shut my door. No more computer. I may peek at my BlackBerry if I am nervous about something, but there is an end time to my workday. I also decide whether or not I am going to work on the weekends.

I used to worry that if I wasn’t working all the time on my business, it wouldn’t grow. I was wrong. I found that doing a little bit each day adds up to all the time I need and can afford right now. That might mean only working on my business for a few hours in a full week.

My priorities are my children first, my family second, and my business third. I think many women are like me and, when starting a business, they think, "Oh, I don’t want all that responsibility. I don’t have the time. I’ll just work for someone else." And this is OK.

I invite you to think about the possibility of working your own hours on your own terms around the things that are important to you. Motherhood Incorporated was founded on the principle that, in building our business, we must do it with respect to ourselves and our families. I am living proof it can be done, and I know many of you can do it, too. Just take it slow. Do a little bit at a time.