Efficiency

Have you ever read the book, "Cheaper by the Dozen", the true story of a family with 12 children, and parents who were employed as efficiency experts in the early 20th century? Well, sometimes that is what I think of when I think "efficiency". I think of the Gilbreth's trying to calculate how to do something with the least amount of unnecessary movements, both in industry and in their home. The book is definitely a humorous read.

But, I usually don't think of myself as being efficient, maybe because I never do get around to doing all of the dozens of things on my mind that I want to do or plan to do. Who does?

Still, I got this email question recently,

You seem to be very efficient, and so I was wondering if you could post a little bit on your blog about time management, especially for work at home moms. I just started a home business but I am finding time management, with the business and two children , to be very difficult.

I showed it to my husband, saying, "Me? Write about time management?" (LOL) You must understand, while dealing with an urgent problem one of our web design clients had this week, I burned dinner. I have never done that before, since my first year of marriage, so that was quite a blow to my domestic ego.

My husband however had a different thought.

"Well, you have come a long way in that area. When we first got married, and especially when we first had kids, you were a disorganized mess. Sorry, but you were. But, you've become super duper efficient with your time in running a business with the kids, while still being spontaneous to the needs of the kids and I. So, I'd say you are efficient in all the right ways."

(snicker) "I'm efficient?"

"Write the blog post! That's an order!" he said with mock authority.

Aye, aye.

Well, as I pondered how I do what I do with the efficiency he apparently sees in me that I fail to see in myself, Sitepoint Books' eNewsletter pinged into my inbox, and with a blog post on just such a topic. Ok, so it's not written specifically for Work at Home Moms, but the princeples are great.

You can read "Three Golden Rules for Working at Home" by Toby Somerville by clicking here.. For the record, I enjoy pretty much any and all Computer and Tech books from Site Point, and their newsletter is wonderful.

But, specifically for a mom, here are some tips, which certainly vary with the ages of your children.

1. Keep your paperwork straight.
With me, I not only have the bookstore (which pretty much runs itself), but as a family we do website design. I say as a family because my older two children (teens) do some of the less-technical work for me, enabling them to earn some cash while learning a skill.

With this job of web design comes Clients, and to keep them straight I have a super sized binder with A-Z dividers. I never thought I'd need that big of a binder, but I do. In it are all the passwords and pertinent information. When I get an email from them, I print it out, put it in my binder, and highlight the information as I change it on the site, and keep track of all correspondence. This works better, I have found, than simply writing down notes on my hand or on a napkin or the back of a Walmart Reciept. I've done that too, and it really is a bad idea.

With my bookstore, I have a super efficient shopping cart installed. Granted I am a web designer and so I can do shopping carts without paying someone to do so, but a shopping cart allows me to export all of my transactions on my website into QuickBooks, and other transactions are manually entered in by my lovely 15 year old daughter who enjoys making money.

What does this have to do with time management? The less time you spend trying to figure out where you were when you got interrupted, the more efficient you will be. If you have to dig through a pile of papers to figure that out, you are wasting time.

2. Make the Price Right

I am really bad at this, but getting better.

I used to look at pricing in a very relative way. I would look at it and say, "Would I be willing to pay that?" and if the answer is no, then I lower the price. Well, that is a bad idea, because I am very cheap LOL, and will usually find a way to do "extra" things like web design cheaper. One of the ways I started designing websites was because I was too cheap to pay someone to do mine.

What does this have to do with time management?

If you are charging a fair price, then you are making it worth your while to do what you are doing. If you are not charging enough, then you are working for less than minimum wage, and might as well go down to McDonalds to sling fries.

As a web designer, there are some jobs I have done where I definately didn't get paid enough, sometimes because I didn't foresee some problems (most recently I didn't realize that I'd have complications relating to my client's web service, and spent my weekend trying to figure it out), and other times, I try to estimate how long something will take, and it takes far less time, which is a blessing. Sometimes if I've never done something but want to learn, I'll not charge as much as I probably should, and just consider it to be like getting paid to go to school. If they're willing for it to take a little longer and be done by an amateur in exchange for a lower than average price, we both win, and I can add it to my portfolio.

If you are doing this to bring in some extra money, make it worth your time. Don't overcharge of course, but be realistic. What is your time worth to you?

3. That brings me to my #3, which is also covered in the article I linked to. Establish some good Work/Family/Home Boundaries

I love ecommerce because I don't have to answer phones. I loathe doing business by phone because I feel like I am at the mercy of the ringer. I had a client last year who lived in the area, and would come to my house whenever a thought about the website hit, and this client would expect me to drop everything, pull out my laptop, and do it. Not a good situation. With email, I can deal with issues on my own time frame, and I can have it in writing so that I don't mistakenly zone out and miss something (that happens too easily to me on the phone).

Lately, I've had more clients that use the phone primarily, and so I've actually had to invest in a hands free device thingy because my neck hurts if I try to hold my phone in my shoulder and type. I actually have found that I love my speaker phone. I still prefer email...not only because I find it more time effecient, but also because it helps me pre-screen clients. If they can't figure out email, a website is not going to do too much for them.

1. When the phone rings you don't have to answer it.
2. It's ok to tell a client that you are in the middle of helping someone else right now (or "Busy" right now), and you'll get back to them. that's what people in the business world do all the time. Find out when a good tiem is to call them back, and do so at a time good for both of you.
3. Your business doesn't mean you are the 24/7 support hot-line for whatever your field is, as nice as it is to be needed. (likewise be considerate of other friends whose skills you value....don't be a pest)
4. I'm sure there's more but you get the point.

The main point here though is to decide what your priorities are when deciding how to manage these situations. I have some priorities that I don't lay aside unless it is a serious emergency...the Lord comes first, Family is second, and everyone else is third. Having dinner together is a priority. Some unchangeable schedule issues are inked in like soccer and piano...that still leaves lots of time, of course, but it also helps me set some hours of when I will do work things, and when I won't do work things.

I think for most work at home moms, the main point here is to be home with children, not sitting at your desk at home with a phone growing out of your ear, and not sleeping for weeks at a time. that means learning to just say no sometimes.

....stay tuned for more tomorrow.