Balancing Both Ep. 1: I need to homeschool AND run my business, but there aren’t enough hours in the week to do both! (Here’s my fix as a homeschooling WAHM.)

This case study comes from one of my clients, who’d scheduled her homeschooling block right before her work time block, but then found that her homeschooling time wasn’t necessarily always ending right when it needed to and thus she was getting shorted on her work hours to fulfill client projects. 

(Not a good thing, let me tell you!)

Because you know kids are kids - some math lessons are harder to work through than others, or sometimes they sleep in a little more that day, or maybe they’re just in a bad mood that morning. 

And you can’t expect one 40-minute homeschooling block to cover all of these scenarios.

But here’s what you CAN do, as I told her.

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

De-stress daily life as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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Transcript

This is a Client Case Study, and today we’re talking about what to do if you need to homeschool AND run your business, but there aren’t enough hours in the week to do both! (Here’s my fix as a homeschooling WAHM.)

This case study comes from one of my clients, who’d scheduled her homeschooling block right before her work time block, but then found that her homeschooling time wasn’t necessarily always ending right when it needed to and thus she was getting shorted on her work hours to fulfill client projects. (Not a good thing, let me tell you!)

And as we discussed this, it became clear that kids are kids - some math lessons are harder to work through than others, or sometimes they sleep in a little more that day, or maybe they’re just in a bad mood that morning. 

You can’t expect *one* 40-minute time block to cover absolutely everything in *all* of these scenarios.

But here’s what you *can* do, I told her.

Build in margin time. Put an hour to 30 minutes where nothing’s scheduled in *between* the end of your daughter’s homeschooling session and your “pick up the client work” time block.

It sounds almost too simple, but there it is. If your daughter is needed extra tutoring time more often than not, then treat *that* as the new deadline and account for it in your day.

(Now, if she’s just pushing your limits to see how long it takes you before you crack down and say “I *can’t* help anymore, I’ve got a client call to run to,” that’s another thing.)

In *that* case, *don’t* tell her about your new margin time limit - keep giving her the old time deadline - and if she runs out of *both* your usual *and* your tutoring time margin, let her face the consequences. 

I.e., “I’m sorry honey, you didn’t finish when you were supposed to, and now I’ve got to go. I can help you after supper on homework instead of taking you to the park like we’d planned.”

Make it something that she’s *less* happy about doing, like skipping family outings in favor of schoolwork or having to do homework with daddy (especially works well if dad has less patience for twiddling thumbs and run-out-the-clock games!).

Then all you have to do is follow through on your *own* time boundaries; hold to your clients’ work project times (that shows respect for *them* as a business owner, anyhow); and assign your daughter evening homeschooling time every time she drags out the math lesson and doesn’t finish before *your* work time block.

‘Cause listen.

• You *deserve* to be able to run a business and keep people’s time commitments to you.
• You *get* to turn client projects in on time and well done.
• You’re *allowed* to meet grown-up deadlines and not just center your entire world around *her* and *her* homeschooling.

Truly! There are *more* things going on in your family’s life than just her homeschooling. As important as that is.

There’s your professional responsibilities (aka, your clients) to think of, not to mention your own husband and partner in all of this! What does *he* think of his daughter playing with her pencil all school time and wasting *your* time as the mom? What would *he* say to her - and to *you* to encourage you, for that matter?

Sometimes we need to tap the other resources at our disposal. In *this* case, get your husband on board with respecting mommy’s time to work, and see if that makes a big difference to your daughter’s attitude on homeschooling in general.

And if not, there’s always the time margin to fall back on. Sorry, can’t do it anymore, got to run to the next thing. (Well, not run, but you know what I mean.)

This is the bucket of time I allocated for your lesson; it’s plenty generous, and we both know it; and if you run *over*, there are consequences. Like not getting to be done with school when you want it.

See how *that* fixes your “homeschooling doesn’t always take a set amount of time” scheduling issues, and give yourself the gift of a consistent-as-possible calendar.

You’re worth it.

You DESERVE to know that whatever client work you’d scheduled for today is GOING to get done.

You DESERVE the calendar blocks that are going to let you fit in the homeschooling AND the biz work.

You. Deserve. 

But until you TRULY believe that deep down, you’ll keep shorting one side or the other (usually your business!) instead of looking for how you CAN have it all – in this case both. And trust me, the answers will appear.

Are you ready to radically reorient what YOU expect from your day-to-day work-from-home schedule?