Stephanie Romero wrote a great post the other day about being intentional about prioritizing. It is certainly true that when a person works from home, their home – based work must be prioritized within the context of their entire home life as well within the structure of the business itself. Sometimes, one type of prioritizing is easier than the others.
For me, deciding where work time fits into my day to day life is easy. I have a two year old son, and my primary occupation is that of a stay – at – home mother. Work time (including phone calls) happens when he is napping or sleeping, with very few exceptions. The only time that I have someone (usually his Grandfather) take care of Dylan so that I can work is when I have a court hearing to attend. Because the needs of a two year old are so great, the amount of work time that I have available as well as when that time happens has pretty much prioritized itself.
The type of prioritizing that it is essential for me to be intentional about is what I will do during those times when my son is napping or sleeping. I have learned over the course of many months not to depend on nap time work sessions because they are not available every day. Some days, my son either skips his nap, or the nap happens while I am driving the car somewhere. On some days, a missed nap makes for an early bed time and on other days not so much. I have learned that each day, I have approximately three hours within which to complete the work of my home – based businesses. Any time that I “find” on top of that is a “bonus”.
The way that I prioritize the work of my home – based business is very intentional and methodical. In order to avoid wasting any of my precious work time, I have written on my calendar what work I am to accomplish during each work session. As new work comes in, it gets put on the schedule where it seems to fit best. Each day when it is time for work, I check the calendar to see what work is scheduled for the day. At the same time, I think about whether those items are currently the most important items to do. If not, I move some of the scheduled work to another day and write down the things that must get done that day. This only takes a few minutes and it gets me focused on work and ready to begin.