by Michelle Barto, Ladies Who Launch member, Orange County, CA
Illustration by Barbara Hranilovich

Feeling overwhelmed as you try to launch your business while balancing Junior on your hip? Fear not: These tips will have you running your company and your household like a pro, and ensure that the people who love you most don’t take a backseat to your biz.

Take time for yourself. When all of your time is spent caring for others, it can be tempting to call the time spent on your business “personal time.” It’s not. Taking a few moments to read something inspiring, drinking your coffee uninterrupted, or getting a pedicure once in a while can seem like impossible feats, but these breaks in your busy day will help both your business and your family. A happy mom means a happy family.

Simplify. Juggling dinners, playtime, a business, and housework can make anyone crazy. If you’re the cook in your home, learn a few healthy dinners that can be made in 30 minutes. And have a mommy-uniform. It doesn’t have to be drab, but like the dinners, it should be something that can be thrown together without too much thought, or varied slightly to suit the occasion. As an example, my baked lemon chicken breast dinner is sometimes made with cornmeal and sometimes with sundried tomatoes. Since I’m breast-feeding, my uniform is jeans and a button-down shirt for more active days, and wrap dresses for everything else. It takes all of the thought out of what to wear.

Prepare the night before. I find the most stressful thing about trying to launch a business and run a household is not the number of chores, but the feeling of constantly being behind. From making lunches to making sure that my diaper bag and car are packed to running through the next day’s to-do list, I find that the days are much smoother and less stressful when I prepare the night before.

Play with your kids. It’s inevitable that you’ll feel like your child is neglected when you’re trying to launch a business. Even if you are lucky enough to have help during the day, make a date with your child every day. Whether it’s a trip to the library for storytime, a playdate at the park, or just a walk around the neighborhood, time spent solely on your child or children will make everyone happy. Your business can take over your life if you let it, but isn’t the point of being a mompreneur the “mom” part?

Blog. There is a rich mom blog network out there. Having a blog connected to your Web site is a great way to improve your ranking on search engines, as there are so many mom networks to link back to your site. Plus, blogging is a nice way to get your creative juices flowing.

Clean as you go. Cleanliness may or may not be next to godliness, but it definitely is next to sanity. My role model for “clean as you go” is my husband’s cousin. With three kids under age 4, a dog, and a Web design business, her house is always immaculate. From her I learned to always empty the sink before going to bed and never to walk from one end of the house to the other without bringing things along to put away.

One master to-do list. As a mom and entrepreneur, it seems that I have far more to do than I could ever accomplish, but my to-do list keeps me focused. A mistake I made early on, however, was keeping a separate list for my home and business. A mompreneur absolutely has to integrate her home life with her business, so why not integrate the to-do lists? I found that when I did this, not only did I accomplish more, but I found myself talking about my business to the people I encountered during the day. Since they already knew me from another aspect of my life, they were far more willing to become clients.

Make a vision statement. You may or may not have a business plan when you launch your business. However, it is important to have a vision of what your product or service is and who you are selling to. By keeping a one-sentence vision statement handy, you will make productive choices that will help you establish your company.

Have a cheerleader. Whether or not this is your spouse, your mom, or someone you meet at Gymboree, make sure you have someone who believes in you. By keeping your cheerleader up to date with your business progress, you will have someone to cheer you up after the long, hard days.

Pat yourself on the back. What you’re doing is not easy, but so rewarding. The week I was supposed to launch my business, I got a horrible flu. I was out of commission all week, but instead of beating myself up about the delay of the launch, I patted myself on the back. I had gotten through the first big flu of my child’s life without getting her sick.

Michelle Barto is a member of the Orange County, CA, Incubator and founder of Hot Mama Nursing Supplies.