Back to School Tips for Entrepreneurial Parents: How do we do all of this?
Yes, I know that “back to school” has already happened. Some people are months in, we are weeks in and actually starting the full days just today. Let’s talk about how the heck we are supposed to manage all of this and a business!? Here are some tips that I’ve either applied myself or have been working with my coaching clients on:
Get support. Pre-COVID there were stay at home parents, working parents, and part-time working parents. Yes, there is the occasional homeschooling entrepreneur, and please introduce me to these people, we need to learn from them! Now these lines are blurred and we are all juggling a lot and our days don’t look much like they used to. Please give this truth the energy and attention that it needs. Don’t expect of yourself that you can “do it all” when “all” has become A LOT. Hiring someone to help you oversee homeschool for an hour or two once or twice a week might be possible for some and not for others. You can also swap this responsibility with neighbors and do a “learning pod” (DM me if you want resources on that). For those people whose kids are going to brick and mortar school, support for you might look like calling a friend when you feel anxiety or stress and leaning on them to express how you are feeling. Bottom line - don’t try to do this alone! Even if it means you are doing all the work, at least get emotional support and give yourself grace--this is no time for self-judgment or perfectionism.
Brain-dump and re-negotiate roles. One of the best exercises that I do on a regular basis is a brain-dump. Getting everything that is in your head down onto a sheet of paper. Do this with all the home, work, and parenting responsibilities that you have. Now, look at your calendar. If there are not enough hours in the day to complete everything on your list then some re-negotiating of roles might help. This might look like having your spouse do the cooking and/or help with cleaning or grocery shopping, kids doing chores, or having a Virtual Assistant (VA) or house cleaner help you out. If the idea of a VA is new to you DM me for info. Get creative on who does what. Maybe you have an older child or a neighbor teenager do some laundry. I’ve heard of a lot of entrepreneurs having their kids help with editing videos, filing papers, or taking Instagram photos for them. I know a woman who hired a retired Grandma to wash & fold her laundry once a week (she found her on Craigslist). The possibilities are endless but you must be open to doing it differently. Watch the stories that you tell yourself around “this has to be me”, and/or “it’s just faster if I do it myself”.
Baseline calendar. Once you have a brain dump of everything you need to do in a week, sit down with a blank calendar, your kid’s schedules (activities too), and create a “baseline calendar”. This is like a map of your ideal week. Put everything that you routinely need to do on there (yes that means cooking dinner, checking emails, making phone calls, emptying the dishwasher, etc.)--all of it goes on the calendar. Why? Because if you don’t have enough hours in the day to do what you are expecting yourself to do, you are setting yourself up to fail & we need to fix that! I’m told this step is very uncomfortable and daunting. Do it anyway. A little temporary discomfort is worth the freed up energy and expansive creativity that will flow into your life and your business if you do this one step. You can do different types of activities in different colors and/or different kids in colors or highlighted. If you and your kids are both at home, put side by side what you will be doing and what they will be doing. Pairing those with the right activities. For instance, I take my coaching calls while my kids are on their zoom calls and I do my content creation while I’m with them and they are doing their reading/writing as I can be interrupted.
Weekly planning. Now that you have your baseline calendar, think of that as a map. That is what you are striving for but it is progress, not perfection, this is not an exact science. You might have to take a detour here and there and/or cancel and reschedule as needed based on the actual day and what life ends up having in store for you. I recommend doing a weekly planning session on Sunday or Monday morning before you step into your workweek. This alleviates a ton of wasted energy thinking about what you might need to do next and shifting from task to task aimlessly only to be derailed by a fire alarm email from a client. Have a plan and then flex! If you don’t have it written down ahead of time, it’s much harder to get back on track once you are pulled away because you don’t even know what your “track” is….! Interesting fact: it takes 20 minutes to get back into focus each time you are distracted from the task at hand.
Pomodoro pairs well with homeschool. Productivity experts have been talking about the Pomodoro method for years. Essentially, breaking your workday into 25-minute chunks separated by five-minute breaks. These intervals are referred to as pomodoros (based on the traditional old Pomodoro tomato timers). This is a perfect way to get chunks of work done (with laser focus) and then take a break to check on how things are going with online school + grab yourself water or tea, walk outside for a minute, and then back to work. Many people find that they are much more productive in chunks of time than hours and hours. Try this out and see what your ideal # minutes of focused time is, could be 45 minutes for you. The key is to only work on one task at a time, so close your browsers, turn off all the dings and just do one thing. Multi-tasking is a myth.
Be sure to fuel your energy. Plan into your week activities that fill your tank and give you energy. It feels counterintuitive, like time away from work & school work won’t help but it absolutely does because you come back refreshed and more focused vs. scattered and depleted. These days are full and will drain your energy so make time to fill your cup. This could be exercise, getting time outside, meditating, reading, or whatever feeds your soul. You can’t pour from an empty cup so fill yours daily (your family will thank you).
Plan & prep ahead and build habits/routines. This might mean making lunches the night before or planning and prepping meals (you can get the kids involved), it makes for a smoother day. Perhaps it means gathering supplies, cords/chargers, and reviewing schedules and assignments ahead. There is nothing like a fire drill in the moment when you have a client call and your kids need you. When you think it through in advance, it alleviates the mad-rush at the last minute.
Forgiveness, self-love, and “begin again” as a practice. Ok, so even the best-laid plans may go awry so give yourself GRACE. You are managing a lot and the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up when things go wrong. Think of each day as a learning experience and you are tweaking and improving based on what works. Practice self-love and forgiveness. Talk to yourself like you lovingly would to your children. You are human and things happen, simply pick up where you left off and “begin again”.
