When are you at your best?

One of the beauties of a home based business is the flexibility that it gives us. There is also a dangerous component of that flexibility and that is that we have the potential of “flexing ourselves right OUT of the business.”

In order to be successful, we must work our businesses consistently. That is a given. However, look at when you are most effective and schedule your work time accordingly.

When is your energy level the highest? Are you an “early bird” or a “late night owl”? When you sit down to make your plan for the week, look at what your goal for the week is. What activities do you need to do in order to accomplish that goal? Knowing who you are in terms of your natural body rhythms is important in working your business with the best results possible.

For example, if you are a late night person, when you come home from an evening party; work off that natural “ post-party adrenaline rush” by making some notes on the order forms of the guests you just met to jog your memory about them in the future. If the party closed that night, go ahead and submit your order to Home Office. Evenings after dinner probably will your best time to do customer calls. Communicating this to your spouse and scheduling specific nights that he/she will deal with the kids will help you to capitalize on your body's natural time clock.

For you early birds, the same can hold true but you will want to be working first thing in the morning. Do paperwork and make notes while the house is still quiet in the morning; and get creative getting daytime childcare help. Summer is a great time to hire a local Jr. High student as a mom's helper to play with the kids while you work one or two days a week. You can also considering trading time for time with a neighbor or friend who has children with similar ages.
Knowing when you are at your best will also help you to choose when you are at your best for training your team as well.

Now, we know that in a perfect world all this is possible. We will always have times that we must work when we are not necessarily at the top of our energy level. Nonetheless, being cognizant of who we are can help us in our quest for balance between business, personal and family life.