Ever feel like you’re wearing too many hats?

Mom. Wife. Cook. Business Owner. School teacher. Maid.

Dad. Husband. Handyman. Employee. Business Owner. Homework Tutor.

… and that doesn’t include all the hats for your small business: CEO, accountant, customer service, product creator, service provider, marketer, website designer, business planner… and on the list goes…

Hey, nice to meet you – we’re part of the same club!

I’ve been working from home for more than 10 years while also juggling a family (husband, three kids, cat, tortoise), household duties, home schooling my children, volunteering as a helper in the Church I attend, and generally staying pretty darn busy.  But I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Building my own online businesses allows me a freedom I could never find in a cubicle.  I’m guessing you like that freedom, too.

But it also means I sometimes stay up too late, get up too early, or forget the laundry needed done.  There are just too many hats!  Thankfully the longer I’ve been at this, the better I’ve gotten at juggling it all.

Here are some of my best tips and strategies shared in blog posts as well as other resources that help me stay on top of everything and sane.

Are you a work at home mom looking for ways to keep it all together? I understand. I’ve been juggling it all for 10 years. Here are some of the resources I’ve found helpful.

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Home Organization

Marcia Francois is an expert at getting and staying organized. I own more than one of her ecourses/guides and thanks to her I can now always find my scissors! Check out her “Organise Your Home” program here: http://www.takechargesolutions.org/organise-your-home/

If getting your house out of “chaos” mode is a challenge, I recommend Fly Lady. I discovered her something like 8 years ago and to this day still use some of the routines and advice to stay on top of my home. It’s really helpful if you were raised with clutter and don’t know quite how to get a cleaning system in place. This is a good place to start or here with the baby steps.

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Menu Planning

How 30 Minutes of Meal Planning Can Save You Hours of Frustration

“What’s for breakfast, mom?” “What’s for dinner, honey?” “We’re hungry!”

How many times do you hear those questions in a typical week? How many times do you wonder, yourself, what to cook for the next meal?

Do you run to the grocery store at the last minute to pick up a missing dinner ingredient? Or drive through and pick up that less-than-ideal meal because you were in a rush? Sometimes cooking dinner is the last thing I feel like doing at the end of a busy day! And I know I’m not alone. TYou can tame the meal time chaos and end all the questions by taking just a few minutes at the beginning of the week to plan out your meals. Think of all the time you’ll save when you don’t have to figure out what to make for dinner, make those last minute trips to the grocery store, or run out for deli or fast food! Susanne from The Hillybilly Housewife offers a great guide to meal planning for just $14.95 – and it includes 6 weeks of dinner meal ideas, too. Click here to check it out.

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Crock Pot Cooking

I’m a big fan of using tools and resources that make it easier to juggle everything on our daily lists. So it probably makes sense that I’m a big fan of crock pots. I use mine at least a few times a week and it’s a life-saver on those days where we’ve got school, ballet, and more to juggle. I’m also not the world’s greatest cook, so I’m excited to share with you this series of Crockpot Cooking lessons from Suzanne Myers of The Hillbilly Housewife. She also offers an ebook with over 500 crock pot recipes!

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Freezer Cooking

With several family members who have Celiac, most restaurants, fast food, and meal in a box type dinners just aren’t an option for our family. That can create some serious meal time stress for me. Freezer cooking to the rescue! By cooking “safe” meals ahead of time it’s much easier to have healthy meals ready when I need them. But even if you don’t have food allergies or similar issues, freezer cooking can be a great way to save time and make meal time less stressful. Susanne’s Freezer Cooking ebook is one of my favorites. It’s how I got started with freezer cooking. It’s got all the basic info you need as well as recipes and more. Definitely worth the $9.95. Check it out here.

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Homeschooling

I’ve been homeschooling for the last 6 years (not including preschool) and for our family, it works wonderfully. Here are some helpful resources if you’re also homeschooling:

Tips for Staying Balanced & Getting it All Done

Homeschooling is a huge commitment. It’s not something you can do half-heartedly or in a few minutes a day. If you’re also working from home it’s important to find a curriculum that will make your life easier. Here are some articles I’ve written for CWAHM.com about homeschooling and working from home:

• Tips to Help You Juggle Homeschooling and Working from Home
• Balancing Homeschooling and Working at Home
• more coming soon…

As far as curriculum I’m a Winter Promise fan, and for math Shiller Math is fantastic for younger grades, and I LOVE Teaching Textbooks for 3rd grade and up.

My favorite homeschool planner: The Well Planned Day

This is a spiral bound planner (comes shipped in the mail, not a digital download) that’s designed to help track up to four students and each of their subjects. It includes monthly and weekly calendars, grade and attendance trackers, encouraging articles and quotes, and more. I’m using it for a 2nd year and absolutely adore it.

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Note: As with many of the links around the site, some of the links on this page are affiliate links. Some aren’t. I recommend only products I’ve personally used or ones from people who I’ve bought enough from to know the quality of their products, regardless of whether they offer an affiliate program.