I’ve heard that being a mom is equal to 2.5 jobs. I am also a work-from home mom and a blogger. That means I have several jobs, apparently. The key to being successful at each is to first know that perfect balance in all areas of life is impossible. You can’t be perfect at everything. With this in mind, I juggle my full-time research editor job, parenting and blogging with the following tips:
- Show yourself grace. I try to be kind to myself when I’m falling behind in some areas. I have to adjust my expectations.
- Plan ahead. I rely heavily on my planner, alarms on my phone and other written lists. I use my monthly planner view to write out my content plan, but I adjust that plan as needed. I use the other pages to plan out each day in sections for morning, afternoon and evening. I am constantly checking my planner and writing down plans.
- Squeeze in writing and other blog work whenever you can. Because blogging isn’t my full-time job, it has to take a back seat to my full-time work and family life sometimes. On some weeks I don’t get to hit publish on everything I had planned, with the exception of sponsored work, which typically has a deadline. For those posts I will work into the night if I have to and I’m OK with doing that as needed.
- Batch similar tasks. I take as many different photos as I can at once, especially the photos I need to wear makeup for (since I don’t wear it on an everyday basis). I also plan photos for when the Chicago area will have sunshine, because I rely on natural sunlight. If all else fails, I use stock images, but I prefer my own. I work on drafts for multiple posts at once, and sometimes I change up my schedule if I finish one post before another.
- Schedule social media as much as possible. I don’t do this as much as I should, but it’s my goal to take advantage of scheduling tools more.
- Outsource whatever is necessary/affordable. I often will have groceries deliveries or I’ll make purchase online. This frees time to spend with family, blog or get my work done. (Graham also often does the shopping.) Another task that I recently outsourced is blog design.
- Do administrative/backend tasks bit by bit. I try to tackle at least a couple small tasks each day. For example, I have been going through old posts and updating them for SEO or fixing broken links.
- Involve the family as much as they want. If my girls want to be in photos, great! If they don’t, that’s OK, too. I also like to blog about our activities and travel. My husband takes photos for me as much as he can as well. He also often reads my posts and alerts me to any typos I need to fix.
- Don’t give in to pressure to post on every social media outlet every day. I used to feel like I had to post on Instagram every single day, for example. Not anymore. I would rather post when I feel like posting or when I want to share a new blog post or event. I might not grow as quickly as others, but that’s OK. There’s more to life than a high number of followers.
- Don’t overschedule. I try not to plan more than one type of activity for blogging on one day, like taking photos and writing on the same day, unless I absolutely need to do it. It causes unnecessary stress and I would rather break the work apart over several days.
Do you juggle various activities at once? What works for you in terms of planning?
