HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR FREELANCE BUSINESS AS A NEW MOM

Being a mom isn’t a job; we don’t punch it and punch out. There are no nights off… Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Freelance business as we know is never easy-peasy and as such, being a new mom with a freelance business to maintain is bound to create a little anxiety. Therefore, as a new mom or soon-to-be new mom looking for ways to keep your business running alongside nursing your baby, these are few tips on how to effectively balance both.

1.         Acknowledge the change – It is important to come to terms with the new status; this will be of tremendous help in being open to and welcoming of adjustments. While at that, it is crucial to also be conscious of the self-projected realities during this period and understand that motherhood doesn’t signify a pause; it’s not a setback or whatever negative mindset anxiety is bound to bring to your unconscious. Just see it as you starting a new job and having more responsibilities and still resolute on balancing your personal with your work life.

2.         Setting up a home workspace – If you normally do run your freelance business from home, setting up a home workspace will only need a little bit of touch-ups and refocusing such as the utilization of post-it-notes or sticky notes as a means of delegating to-dos rather than having to put them all in your brain and other stuff but if you’re the type who runs your freelance business from an office outside your home, you’ll be needing a home workspace where you can run things conveniently while attending to your baby and home.

3.         Be gentle on yourself –  This is also highly important because it is quite easy to be hard on yourself as a result of comparing notes and definitely trying a lot of suggestions that others have probably swore worked for them but you may find challenging along the line. The truth is, there is no universal motherhood experience and that means, there will be moments when what works for A as a new mom and as a new mom with a business may not likely work for you and if it does, you may probably have to be more intentional than they were because you have different realities even though you have nursing and raising babies in common. In other words, set your own terms and be open to modifications of whatever suggestions you’re given. In fact, there will be some that may be quite irrelevant to you. Motherhood realities are different for everyone; the fact that someone seems to efficiently balance raising children alongside running her business doesn’t mean they don’t face their own challenges and the fact that you struggle doesn’t mean you are exaggerating motherhood. Be graceful with yourself. Be gentle. Motherhood is emotionally and mentally demanding and it is important that you are careful with comparing notes that you don’t break down mentally trying to outdo someone else or be someone else when you can just work with your realities. Again, there are no universal childbirth experiences.

4.         Be intentional about realistic timelines/deadlines – One of the best ways to maintain clients’ trust and brand integrity as a new mom is to apply the acknowledged change to your timelines/deadlines. It is important to have a positive outlook about this; the fact that you’ll probably need to extend your service delivery time by a week or two unlike before doesn’t mean motherhood makes you less efficient, it only means you’re being considerate of yourself and passionate about your client that you’re willing to pattern your business according to the reality that would serve them better. Extending your usual timelines or deadlines by a week or two will give you ample time to cater to yourself, your baby and your business.

5.         Reprioritize and creatively multitask – Yeah, as a freelancer, multitasking is definitely one of the things we deal with such as reading/working while on a meal, etc. and as such, being a new mom will definitely require a new kind of multitasking with reprioritization. In other words, it means, you have to prioritize your works, not according to their deadlines alone but according to the level of hard work it requires and this will help you to successfully plan towards efficient service delivery. As a new mom with a work that requires research to deliver, you can break down the work into reading, writing/typing, editing, etc. Having done that, you can read up on the work in between breastfeeding your baby, rocking him/her to sleep on your chest or listen to the audio version of a book rather than read the printed copy if you have to do a review.

6.         Ask for/Get help when necessary – If there is anything a new mom needs to understand, it’s that you cannot always do it alone even without a business to run talk more of having a business to run. There will be moments when you need more help in efficiently running things and meeting your set goals and deadlines; do not hold back or be afraid to ask for help. It doesn’t make you weak; it doesn’t mean you are less than who you were before the baby, it only means your body went through a beautiful experience and no, that didn’t affect your productive ability, it only increased your responsibilities and an increase in responsibility means an increase in execution approach. Therefore, you might need more hands; you might need to delegate or even collaborate with someone else or other brands to get the work done. Sometimes, you can have many jobs and it’s okay to employ the service of another freelancer whose work quality you can trust to execute the job while you pay him/her, go through the work and certify it as what your client would expect from you. Also, if you are the type who runs a social media platform for your business, you might need to employ the services of a Social Media Manager while you deal with orders and deliveries of service.

Overall, as a new mom, tracking your time and setting work goals for each day as a means of keeping a work progress report would really help in maintaining your freelance business (knowing what goal has been smashed and the ones waiting to be) and also serve as an incentive for you on days when it feels like you couldn’t meet your business goals; there will be days like that.