If you have kids at home and are building a business, this episode is for you! It's taken me years and years to develop and implement a work-at-home schedule that works for me and my (very large) family.

In today's episode, I'm sharing my own current schedule, showing you how to decide what's most important in creating your own, and walking you through the process. By the end of this show, you'll know exactly when you want to schedule regular working time on your business and how to make it happen even around family and household obligations.

I'll also share some common places that moms can let go of additional home management duties to free up time and energy.

Download my free guide to getting your coaching business up and running in ONE weekend.

Ready to work together? Schedule a call to explore your goals and learn how I can help you.

01:03 Balancing Business and Family Life

01:49 The Importance of Focus and Boundaries

04:22 Implementing Block Scheduling

05:45 Creating a Flexible Schedule

12:49 Tips for Prioritizing and Delegating Tasks

18:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

You're listening to episode

62 of burning brightly.

2

Create the perfect work at home schedule.

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This is Burning Brightly, a podcast

for Christian moms who are feeling

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called to build a business and

share their light with the world.

5

I'm Bonnie Wiscombe, a life coach,

mom, and entrepreneur, and I'm honored

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to be your guide as you face this

business building adventure full of

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highs, lows, and everything in between.

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This is where we help each

other find the courage to shine.

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Hello friends.

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Welcome back today.

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We're going to get into

the weeds a little bit.

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You guys know, I love those.

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10,000 foot views of our business.

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I'd love to talk big picture

and vision and goals, but

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sometimes we just need to know.

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Specific's tactical tools to building

our business on a day-to-day basis.

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So today we're going to talk

specifically about scheduling.

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And finding a way to incorporate business

tasks and activities in your daily life.

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In a way that is consistent.

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That is simple.

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That does not allow too much buffering

and distraction because it's very easy

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to do when you own your own business.

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Now, lots of people have asked

me or have just wondered aloud.

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How in the world someone makes business

or work happen with kids at home,

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especially small children that need you.

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Well, In reality, you don't really

need oodles and oodles of time and

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you don't need kids in school all day.

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I am.

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A good example of this.

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So I am going to show you how I build

businesses with currently nine kids

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being homeschooled here at home.

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And lots of other things on my

plate, it is totally possible, but

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it does require some commitment.

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Regardless of what your life

circumstance looks like.

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We're going to talk today about how

to create your own perfect schedule.

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No matter the constraints, even if you are

working outside of the home or working for

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someone else, or you don't have childcare,

or you have a bunch of kids at home,

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regardless, we're going to figure it out.

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Now first off, let me just say that.

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I learned early on in my business

building that, trying to do

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everything at the same time.

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Is a recipe for disaster.

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So what I mean is when I'm trying

to be a mom and a business owner and

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a house cleaner and a homeschooler.

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All in the same hour than I

am terrible at all of them.

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I'm a terrible mom and a terrible business

owner and a terrible house cleaner and

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a terrible homeschooler because all of

those things require a certain amount

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of energy and brain power to do well.

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And when our brain multitasks,

it becomes less effective.

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All of the studies have shown this.

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Unfortunately, our brain

is tricked very easily.

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We like to think that we're being

productive when we're multitasking.

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Right.

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How many times have you done?

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A couple of activities at once and

thought, wow, I got so much done.

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But if we really looked at the breakdown

of how much you got done in that one

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hour, trying to do three or four things.

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I can almost guarantee that it

would be less effective than

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focusing on one until it was done.

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And then moving on to the next thing.

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So we, we do kind of have to fight against

our innate desire to do many things

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at once so that we can stay focused.

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So that means that now when I

choose to homeschool, I'm not

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cleaning for the most part.

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That one is a little bit tricky.

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I'll help a kid and go do

some laundry or something.

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But for the most part, I try

to focus on one or the other.

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When I am parenting, I

am not working again.

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I do the best I can.

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Sometimes kids need you in the middle of a

project, or sometimes you have to respond

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to an email that's kind time sensitive.

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But the more we can.

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Streamline these roles and not let them

cross over into each other's boundaries.

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The better we will be at all of them.

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I promise that's true.

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Even if it means ignoring your kids

for a couple of hours, while you

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get a project done, it will require

some communication with your kids.

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It might require some childcare.

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If you have kids that are

too young to understand this.

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But this is a critical lesson to learn.

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And as you start doing this again,

especially if you have kids at

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home and you start building your

business from home, you're going

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to learn this very quickly.

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If you haven't learned it already,

but this is my top number one lesson.

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To learn when trying to

build a business at home.

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So creating really strict boundaries

around time and energy has been the

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only way that I've been able to succeed.

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Now, I will say that if you

only have a few kids or you

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have more alone time, right?

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Like all your kids are in

school, you might be able to

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multitask a little bit more.

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Maybe you can answer some

emails and then go put.

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A couple of loads of laundry in

because you have six or seven.

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Quiet hours during the day to work.

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And it doesn't all need to be

dedicated to your business, but,

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but still even then, I think it

always works better for our brains.

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If we can give ourselves blocks

of time to do just one thing.

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So if you only remember one thing

from this episode, remember.

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Generally multitasking drives

down productivity in all areas,

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even though it feels good.

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All right.

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So let's talk about block

scheduling for a second.

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It's.

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Been pretty trendy online, a lot

of productivity experts, home or

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organization experts talk about block

scheduling, but essentially what it

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means is instead of scheduling every

minute or every hour of your day,

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you're just scheduling rough blocks.

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That might look like two to four hours.

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Of a block for a specific

task or group of tasks.

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Okay, so that might look

like in the morning.

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I have.

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Uh, block for cleaning, and then there's

a block for lunch and cleanup, and then

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there's a block for work time, and then

there's a block for dinnertime, right?

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So we're just.

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Chopping up our day into chunks and we

dedicate each chunk to some main thing.

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Now.

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Admittedly as a parent, this

very rarely looks clean.

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Because kids don't obey block schedules.

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They're not like, oh, this isn't the

time for mom to read books to me.

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So I'm not going to ask her to read books.

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Now the kids are going to want

you to do what they want you to

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do at all hours of day or night,

especially if they're younger.

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But we can train them to

follow a basic block schedule.

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And I found it's very

efficient for kids as well.

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It's very good for them to have

structure and to understand, oh,

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this isn't the time for that.

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The time for that is at 3:00 PM.

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I'm going to try to

exercise some patients.

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Some self-management to

wait until that time.

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It's very, very useful for

kids to develop those skills.

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Now in addition to block

scheduling another tool,

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that's going to be very useful.

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To learn and implement is flexibility

when things begin to break down.

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So I'm going to share with you

what my block schedule looks

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like for this school year.

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And acknowledged that it will

probably look different next semester.

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It might even look different next month.

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I have to stay very, very

flexible depending on my needs.

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So for example, over the summer, I didn't

have childcare for my youngest and she is.

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A demonic psycho baby, who gets into

everything and smears butter on every

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surface and conditioner and soap.

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And I could go on and on.

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She must be watched very

carefully at all times.

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So I had to be very intentional about

when I did work, where she was making

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sure that she was cared for adequately

and watched appropriately, which I

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usually only trust myself to do so.

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That was a very different

phase of life right now.

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She's in school.

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So it looks a little bit

different, so stay flexible,

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especially if you have young kids.

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My current school year looks

a little bit like this.

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I wake up and my first kind of

mini block is self-care time.

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I choose to exercise.

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First thing in the day,

it sets me up for success.

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I really love it.

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And then I come home and shower.

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Kind of in the meantime, I might throw

out things, supplies for breakfast

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to get kids started on eating, but

I usually make breakfast after I

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come home from the gym or running.

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Or after I shower, so we'll all eat.

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And then the next block is homeschool.

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So we actually have a tutor who

handles most of it right now, which

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is a complete and utter lifesaver.

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But.

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If kids need additional

help, I will help with that.

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Or I might be doing a little

bit of household work while

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she's working with the kids.

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This is generally time to do laundry.

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If they don't need me and,

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Keep that crazy three-year-old

out of playing in the toilet.

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Then the block schedule turns

to a lunch and cleanup time.

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And ideally we clean up our

school supplies as well.

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My baby will then get on

the bus for preschool.

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She goes to preschool four days a

week, and then I start work at about

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1:00 PM while my kids play, or maybe

finish a school project or read books.

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I then worked in my office for

probably three or four hours.

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Sometimes I go to a a

coworking space in case I need.

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Utter quiet and my kids

aren't capable of that.

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And then we will have a block

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for dinner, which a child usually helps me

with after dinner, we read scriptures and

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then we play or pick up the house, maybe

watch a show and then put kids to bed.

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And then it's time for Luke and I to.

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Decompress a little bit at night.

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So that's kind of what things

are looking like right now.

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Again, flexibility is key.

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In a few months, if things

aren't working well or.

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One of my kids starts to need a

little bit extra attention, or my

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oldest son gets more hours at his job.

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I might have to.

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Move things around a little bit, right.

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Fewer helping hands at home or more.

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Little kid needs means that I have to

be flexible with my own work schedule,

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but that has worked some variation of

that schedule has worked pretty darn

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well for us for a couple of years now.

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So let's talk about creating and

figuring out the best schedule for you.

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Here are the keys to doing it.

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Number one, choose your priorities.

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Like I said, if you have young

children, One of your top

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priorities is going to be them.

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It's going to be taken care of them,

yourself, or finding childcare for

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them, or setting them up with something

that's going to entertain them while

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you are busy with other things.

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That's the first key, choosing

those priorities and deciding what

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you will and won't let go of.

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The second key is to label those

blocks with one primary activity.

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Again, as a mom, it's impossible to

only do one thing for three hours.

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Wouldn't that be nice.

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Hey kids, I'm just going to organize

this closet from two to five.

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No interrupting me and

no requests for snacks.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Good luck.

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That doesn't work like that.

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But as we communicate to

our kids, Hey, this is the.

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Part of the day where we pick up and

then we have a clean house before

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dinner, or this is the part of day.

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Where we play outside they can really

appreciate that structure as well.

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And then finally, the third key, like

I said before, stay super flexible.

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It is not a sign of failure to

have to change your schedule.

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Not in the least.

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It just means you're paying

attention and this current

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schedule isn't working for you.

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long as you can remember those

keys, choose your priorities.

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Label the blocks with

like a primary activity.

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And stay flexible.

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Then you get to decide.

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When will the bulk of my work

time be when will I get the

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most of my business time done?

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Will it be early in the morning.

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Uh, a lot of people say that

the best time to work on your

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business, which I probably agree.

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I've never done.

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It would be first thing in the morning.

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Cause that's when your brain is freshest.

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Generally that tends to be a

very high needs time for kids.

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So that has never been a solution

for me, except for maybe early

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morning before kids wake up.

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But if that's possible, I would schedule

that in for you, because that sounds

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amazing to do it first thing in the

morning, or right after kids go to school.

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But you can also just fit

it in wherever you can.

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Working in the afternoon has

actually worked really well for me.

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I look forward to my work time because

it's kind of a natural lull in the

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day, right after lunch, kids are just

kind of going off to do something fun.

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They've been looking forward to

doing afterschool time and I'm

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looking forward to sitting down

with my own projects to work on.

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Now this works for me because

I have big kids to help.

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So I have teenagers who are home

during the day and they can pitch in

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if need be, if a kid has a meltdown

or there's a fight, or somebody knocks

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on the door, they can handle it.

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When I did not have big kids, my

work schedule looked a lot different.

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I would work, like I said, early in

the mornings before kids woke up.

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During nap time or after bedtime.

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Occasionally I would get childcare

and go to the library or a coffee shop

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or something so that I could get some

focus time done in quiet, but I had to

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be a lot more flexible and a lot more

creative in fitting that work time in.

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If you have kids in

school, it might look like.

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Self care time or getting kids ready

and getting them off in the morning.

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And then maybe you do a quick cleanup of

the house, and then you get a big chunk

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of work time from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

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Fit in a little lunch break, do some

laundry, go pick up the kids, you're

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going to know probably already,

if you haven't already created a

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great schedule that works for you.

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What a good chunk of time

will be for your business.

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If you only have little kids, maybe your

work time would look like an early morning

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planning session before they get up.

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I love to plan my day or week

early in the morning when I'm still

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fresh and excited for the day.

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Maybe you do some work time

during naps or during quiet time.

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I'm a big fan of quiet time.

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Or maybe you just decide you're

going to let the kids watch TV for

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a couple hours in the afternoon.

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And that's when you're going

to work on your business.

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Absolutely zero judgment from me because

we do what we can to survive sometimes.

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You can even get really creative and

maybe you decided to take the kids to

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McDonald's a couple of times a week, and

they're going to play on the playground

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while you bring your laptop and work on

a blog post, or a podcast or something.

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Like I said, multitasking is so hard and

it's not ideal to watch your kids while

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you're trying to work, but it is possible.

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You really can make anything work.

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I have found with little kids

actually that they very often only

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require a few minutes of focused

attention with them every hour or so.

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And then you can work

while they play by you.

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So I'll go into the playroom with my

kids and say, Hey, let's build a tower

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with Lego and then we'll build it up.

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And then they get distracted and

they're off playing for another

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45 minutes while I can pull up my

laptop and do a little bit of work.

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All right.

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So that is kind of a broad idea

of how you can create a block

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schedule that works for you.

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With your business

needs and go from there.

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And again, stay flexible at all times,

especially when there is some sort

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of a shift like kids start school

or get out of school or there's

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a break or there's a sickness,

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like September, when everybody brings

home the new sicknesses from school,

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you might have to pull back on work a

little bit because you got kids home.

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Sick.

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You just pay attention to those ebbs

and flows of life and be flexible.

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Okay.

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. A few more tips before we wrap up.

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If life already feels full for you, which

you know, side note it does for most

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people, then it's important to acknowledge

that something is going to have to give.

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The first thing I recommend to

people is to do a time audit.

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If you haven't tried this

before, it's really, really fun.

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You just jot down everything you do

in a day and how long it takes you.

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You just do it for one day.

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Preferably an average day that you know,

is made up of what you usually do today.

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And then you look out at the end

of the day and decide, oh, I had

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no idea that I was spending 45

minutes every day on laundry.

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Right?

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No idea that I was spending

45 minutes on Instagram.

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Paying attention to where your minutes go

can really give you a big picture idea of

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whether you're spending your time in a way

that isn't keeping with your priorities.

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So once you've done that,

then you get to decide.

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What can I do less of.

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What can I delegate or what can I delete?

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I'd like to call it that you're

just clicking a little button and

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deleting some things from your life.

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Sometimes that is.

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Completely within your prerogative as.

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Uh, business owner and mom.

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So what are we going to do?

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Less of?

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What are we going to delegate

and what are we going to delete?

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So here are a handful of areas that

most moms have to scale back on a

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little bit when they start making

time for their business laundry.

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Of course, because children.

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Create endless amounts of laundry.

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It's ridiculous.

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A few ideas are making kids over the age

of about seven or eight, do their own.

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Once they're old enough to put

things in the washing machine

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and pour some soap on top.

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That pretty much covers it.

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It's a pretty easy skillset to master.

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You can stop folding.

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Did you know that folding is optional?

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Some people out there are probably

freaking out totally optional.

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You can stop putting clothes away.

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You can just sort them and leave them

in baskets and kids can come get their

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own clothes out of their own baskets.

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They can put them in their drawers

if they want, or they can just

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pull them out and get dressed.

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Oh, Can you imagine?

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If laundry didn't require sorting,

folding, putting away and then

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putting the baskets back, that

is all optional and side note.

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I don't do most of that.

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It's very freeing and I love it.

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Maybe you could consider not

mixing kids clothes, So you

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only put one kid's clothes.

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In the wash at a time.

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So there's no sorting involved, So

there's a lot of different hacks

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to minimize the amount of work

and time required for laundry.

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Food.

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Oh my gosh.

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Buying, preparing and cleaning

up food takes up so much time,

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especially with a large family.

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Have you considered.

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Uh, using a service like hello,

fresh, or one of those boxes that

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delivers the ingredients to your

door and you just put them together.

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Or could you create a list of.

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Seven to 10 meals that your family

all loves and you just rotate

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those over and over and over.

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So there's no meal planning.

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It's just the same 10 meals

over and over and over.

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Could you create a grocery list template?

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That you could add specialty items

too, but you always know what to order.

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And I'm pretty sure some grocery

apps will actually save this for you.

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So you just go click yes.

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To all the things and you

reorder your same regulars.

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Side note, if you're not already

doing grocery pickup or delivery

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as a business owner and a mom,

you must start immediately.

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It saves us so much time and

it saves impulse purchases.

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Bonus.

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Have you considered, or do you

already give your husband or

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kids the job of cooking dinner?

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Do you delegate dinner to those

capable of doing it or even just

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jobs like chopping vegetables to

someone who's old enough to do that.

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So all of those are.

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Ways to let go of some

of that food stress.

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Cleaning everybody is always stressed

out that their house isn't clean

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enough because people live in it.

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And living people making messes.

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But perhaps you can create a

chore schedule that has people

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cleaning every single day.

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If my children did not clean every single

day, we would live in literal cesspool.

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It's so messy, so quickly

with nine kids at home.

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So everybody's required to

pick up an area every day.

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They're required to wipe

things down every day, they're

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required to unload and load and.

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Help out with.

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Picking up toys and any

other messes that happen.

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Make sure that other people are

participating in the cleaning activities.

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Even young kids, really young kids,

two, three can pick up toys and clothes.

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They can put plastic plates in the sink.

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kids just a little bit older can help

unload the dishwasher very, very easy.

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So what ways can you delegate again?

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When they're small, they require

a lot of supervision, but maybe

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you can even delegate that.

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Ask your husband to have the five-year-old

unload the dishwasher with him and teach

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him some work ethic at the same time.

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Consider doing deep cleaning just once

a week or once every other week with

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the whole family involved on a weekend.

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Or maybe even hiring cleaners even

one time a month, having cleaners

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come in and deep, clean your house.

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Feels like an entire load has

been taken off your brain.

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So what could you.

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Do to lessen your load in that area.

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And then finally there's household

management, because running

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a household is not just about

laundry and cleaning and food.

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It's about things like paying

bills and running errands.

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And paperwork for the school

or returning calls or emails.

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Did you know, you can hire this stuff out.

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You can hire a household manager or a

mother's helper or someone who's old

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enough to do some of these things for you.

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They can pick up and drop off carpool.

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They can do organizing projects

side note lately my 11 year old has

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been trying to earn some money for a

kind of expensive Halloween costume.

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And he has organizing all the things that

he's doing a really stellar job of it.

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And I'm happy to pay him a few dollars.

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To organize my junk drawer and my

random core drawer and the linen

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closet for a little bit of sanity.

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And he gets to earn some

money in the process.

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So booking travel is another thing.

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If you travel a lot or you're

going on vacation, give somebody

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else the job of combing through

all the Airbnbs and deciding which

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one works best for your family.

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Although that's a task I really liked.

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So I don't really want

to give that one up yet.

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And I don't travel enough for that to be

a real burden on me, it's kind of fun, but

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that could be something for you as well.

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in summary, there is absolutely a

way to make space in your life for

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regular time to work on your business.

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Absolutely no matter what your current

situation is, but you have to be

433

very intentional about it and you

have to be able to let things go.

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I remember that one time, I explained to a

friend how I did laundry or, didn't do it

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we were washing drying, and then

just kinda throwing it in baskets.

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And she had the most horrified

look on her face and said, I could

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never, and I thought that's okay.

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You don't have to, but I do because

I'm choosing to build my business in

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a way that does not allow time for

folding and putting clothes away.

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And I am AOK with it.

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So maybe you're not AOK

with not folding clothes.

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All right.

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So find something else you can let go of.

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To make real progress

on your business dreams.

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Because we have to remember in our

business, there is no boss, but us.

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So if we let our brain decide.

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When is a good time to

work and what to work on.

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We will never be efficient.

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We will just be hopping

around at anything.

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That sounds good.

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We will just only ever work in the

evenings when we're too tired to process

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anything, because we didn't hold ourselves

to this schedule that we planned before.

453

So be your own boss, decide ahead of time.

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I'm going to work from 10:00 AM

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gonna make a list ahead of time

Monday morning or Sunday night.

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And when that time comes,

I'm going to get it done.

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As if I were reporting to a boss, that

is the only way we will get to success.

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We can't let our impulse brain

decide for us in the moment.

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We'll never do the hard thing, but I

promise there's a way, no matter what, if

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you'd like help with your schedule, this

is definitely something I can help people

461

with on a free consult call with me.

462

You can always sign up for one of

those in the link of the show notes.

463

It's always a fun time to kick kind of a

business review and take a look at where

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you could be making different choices to

get your business closer to your dreams.

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All right, friends, we'll

talk to you next week.