Full-Time Parent and Full-Time Business Owner
Productivity Tips to Getting Through Life!
Full-Time Parent and Full-Time Business Owner
I was asked to speak on a panel entitled "Full-Time Parent and Full-Time Business Owner" at the recent conference we attended. Many attendees to this conference are young professionals with young families and the organization is made up about 40% of female financial planners which is rather high percentage of women in a financial services industry. I initially thought we would get mostly women who are already parents attend this particular panel, and was surprised to see when we took a quick poll of the audience that the mix was about even in terms of men and women, and that a large segment of the attendees did not even start a family yet. I quickly realized that this issue that is traditionally targeted towards women and young moms is actually a much larger conversation that impacts both men and women and is a large concern for those who are planning to start a family.
As myself and the other panelists began the discussion, we initially told them a little bit about ourselves and answered one question from the moderator about the forever alluding work/life balance. We then opened up the 75 minute discussion to the audience and found that we spent the entire remainder of the panel answering the many questions folks had - clearly this was a hot topic!
Most of the questions we received actually focused on productivity techniques and we were happy to share some of them with the audience. In terms of running our business there are a number of online resources I and my fellow panelists use to create efficiencies such as:
Another interesting question we received is "when do you know you made it?". This is a particularly hard question to answer. First off, yes - we would love to have a dollar amount likely commensurate to our earnings prior to starting the business that we would like to contribute to the households. But in addition, there is another significant benefit to being a business owner which is that we get to make our own hours. Sometimes that means waking up early and working late, but getting to spend a couple hours with our children that we otherwise would not have. What I would say is think about you core values and what made you start your business, and memorialize them in some way by either making a list, a dream board, whatever works for you. Sometimes you are going to compromise on take home income for a number of years for the benefit of being able to contribute in other meaningful ways to your young family. And let's face it, your family is only young once.
If your core values are being met, and your business is growing in line with projections, you are success in the making. I personally don't think we will ever feel like we made it, so I can settle for that...
As myself and the other panelists began the discussion, we initially told them a little bit about ourselves and answered one question from the moderator about the forever alluding work/life balance. We then opened up the 75 minute discussion to the audience and found that we spent the entire remainder of the panel answering the many questions folks had - clearly this was a hot topic!
Most of the questions we received actually focused on productivity techniques and we were happy to share some of them with the audience. In terms of running our business there are a number of online resources I and my fellow panelists use to create efficiencies such as:
- Online schedulers (ScheduleOnce, Calendly)
- Virtual assistants
- Workflow managers (Process Street)
- Template use (text expander)
Another interesting question we received is "when do you know you made it?". This is a particularly hard question to answer. First off, yes - we would love to have a dollar amount likely commensurate to our earnings prior to starting the business that we would like to contribute to the households. But in addition, there is another significant benefit to being a business owner which is that we get to make our own hours. Sometimes that means waking up early and working late, but getting to spend a couple hours with our children that we otherwise would not have. What I would say is think about you core values and what made you start your business, and memorialize them in some way by either making a list, a dream board, whatever works for you. Sometimes you are going to compromise on take home income for a number of years for the benefit of being able to contribute in other meaningful ways to your young family. And let's face it, your family is only young once.
If your core values are being met, and your business is growing in line with projections, you are success in the making. I personally don't think we will ever feel like we made it, so I can settle for that...
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