How to Balance a Busy Schedule with your Work at Home Business

Written by Mary Lutz

One question I get asked quite often is, “How do you balance your busy schedule with your work at home business?” I am very involved in my church with the youth ministry and other activities, plus I help coordinate and organize two large Christian events. Well, let me tell you, I don’t know if “balance” is the proper term or not, but I will give you some insight on how I do it.

First of all, make a plan.

You must plan ahead for any expected time away from your computer. Recently, I helped serve at a 3 day women’s retreat. I knew I was not going to be able to take my laptop with me nor get on a computer for 3 days straight, so I had to prepare for this. I’m currently helping one of my clients promote and plan for a webinar coming up so I had to set up my email to autorespond and autoforward. If you know you will be receiving important email that can’t wait to be answered while you are away, you should be able to set your email program up to auto forward to someone who can take care of them for you. Of course you may have to pay for this, but if your business relies on this service, then you can’t afford not to.

I also have some clients that I write for, so I made sure I had all of my writing assignments caught up. If I didn’t, then I would be sure to get them caught up and/or written some articles ahead of time. Another thing you can do if you post to your blog daily, is write some posts ahead of time, then use the scheduler to publish at a later date. I have another conference coming up next week so I’m planning on using this feature during that time.

Inform your clients of times you will not be available

As soon as you know you’re going to be away for a while, let your clients know and have them mark it on their calendar. That way if they have any work they need done, they can plan ahead as well. Also, they won’t be surprised when they email you and you don’t respond right away! There’s nothing worse than sending an email out that needs an answer right away and not getting a response!

Think about what your client may need

Some of these suggestions take 2 seconds to do, but are often forgotten because we get so busy. To help you remember, put yourself in your clients shoes. Think about their needs and how you would like to be treated if you were on the other end.

With a little thinking ahead and planning, you will be able to relax when you go away for a retreat, conference or even a vacation (imagine that!) knowing your clients are taken care of and that your business CAN continue to run, even though you are not there.

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