Work-Home Life Balance- How I'm Managing Working From Home with Two Children

So, I had baby number two, my daughter Kiah, eight months ago and baby number one, Alexander, is now three and a half. When I had Alexander, things were great; I started my business, I spent quality time bonding with him, I had lot of down time during his naps and learning to be a mom was fun. It was just me and him.  Now that there is two of them, there's a little bit of sibling rivalry and jealousy. Both are constantly seeking my attention and I'm constantly looking after them, with no down time and hardly anytime for work. Not to mention, trying to take care of myself, getting back in shape, post-pardum shedding and managing my emotions. It wasn't until recently that I realized that I needd a break and that was when I decided to take a vacation and return home to be with my family.

Having your own business it awesome, but there is a lot of work involved. There is so much to focus on and it can be exhausting when you are doing everything on your own. Just to give you and idea of the things that I focus on when running the business: I order supplies and raw materials, order packing, make and mix the products, print and cut labels, pack and print shipping labels, update website, create content in the form of blog posts and images to post on social media sites, reply to e-mails and messages, make phone calls, balance accounts, conduct inventory, create advertisements and email marketing, among many other things. All while working from home with an infant, a toddler and a husband running around the house. I occasionally hire some help, but when you're a small business owner sometimes you can't afford to get the continued help you need.  

I'm not going to lie, it's a lot work and it's not easy.  Oftentimes it's extremely stressful and overwhelming trying to do it all. It's even gotten to the point where I've thought about quitting the business altogether to focus on my family life. However, after taking a break from work I realized that sometimes I just need to take a break; not only from work, but from family, friends and all the distractions in life in order to focus on myself. 

Now that I'm back from vacation I'm taking the necessary steps to delegate some tasks and work with production partners. I'm planning to schedule time to be alone and focus on myself on a regular basis in order to have peace of mind and balance. There are so many things that I have learned over the past two and a half years about owning a small business that I could never learn in a classroom and it has been a rollercoaster but I'm still going along for the ride and thanking God everyday for the life lessons and for all his many blessings. 

-Joshica