Five Productivity Hacks from a Busy Mompreneur
As a busy mom, wife, and entrepreneur, I’m often asked how I balance it all. The truth is, I don’t. It’s taken me years to improve my productivity, and it’s still something I struggle with every day. As I’m coming close to my two-year quitaversary (two years since I quit my corporate job), I’m realizing how far I’ve come with my productivity.
While I’m nowhere near where I want to be, I’ve drastically improved my focus and follow-through rate. If you’re a busy mompreneur struggling with productivity, know you’re not alone. Below are my top five productivity hacks.
Time block
Time blocking seems to be the hottest productivity trend among busy entrepreneurs, and that’s because it works. We’re more likely to follow through with a task or event if it’s in our schedule, which is why time blocking is a great tool for busy moms.
Take the time to break up your upcoming tasks into time chunks in your calendar. I like to do this on Sundays before starting the week.
Get up early
If you’re a busy mom who’s not getting up hours before her kids in the mornings, you need to be. I get it, you’re tired, but in reality, we all are. Building a positive habit to wake up at 4 am every weekday has been tough, but it’s been one of the best choices I’ve ever made.Waking up at 4 am means I get 2.5 hours of uninterrupted time to do what I usually don’t make time for. This usually means working out, meditating, and journaling.
Get ready
I’ve mentioned the importance of taking time to get dressed every day, and that’s because I think it’s essential to a mom’s productivity. Taking the time to build your confidence has been proven to boost productivity. As a mom, I know we’ll put anything and everyone before our own needs. So, use your extra early wake-up time to style your hair, wear a chic outfit, and set yourself up for success.
If this has been a proven difficult for you, try time blocking your style time in. I have a “get ready” time block in my schedule from 5:30 – 6:00 am. Trust me, it works.
Set boundaries
Like I mentioned above, moms tend to put everyone before themselves, and it’s time to change that. If you’re a mom trying to build a business, you need to learn to set boundaries between your home, love, and business lives. This doesn’t mean you completely ignore everything around you, but it does mean setting limits to who can have access to you at what times.
There are many ways to build boundaries as entrepreneurs, check my recent article for some easy hacks.
Batch work
As a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I’m constantly needing to change gears to avoid burnout. I never thought I’d be able to complete a batch of assignments in one sitting until I learned about batch working. In summary, batch working is the act of focusing your efforts in topic-specific forms.
For example, instead of writing one blog post per week for your website, you would try to crank out a month’s worth in one sitting. This method has been proven to save time, boost productivity, and improve focus.