We’re both self-employed sole-traders, and also mums in business. If you’re in that boat yourself, you’ll know that means wearing a heck of a lot of hats, multitasking, juggling and all the inherent highs and lows. And mostly doing all that completely on your own (or boring the pants off your husband and friends by talking about it).
Being a sole trader can mean complete freedom to have control over your business and follow your ideas, but it can also mean getting very side-tracked, overwhelmed, stuck, and feeling lonely at times too.
Here’s what we do as as Business Buddies and how it works for us…
It’s that time of the year when we’re all making new resolutions and wanting to plan and refresh to make the year ahead more organised and successful that the last one. So I’ve been seeing lots of posts and chats in Facebook groups lately about planners and journals and finding out what works for people.
I’ve been running both my own business (Qalbi) and MIB Network for 10 years now. I’m also a mum of 2 school-age children who do lots of sports and have different term dates. So the combo means that I have to be pretty damn good at juggling to keep on top of things.
Over the years I’ve tried various planners and apps to help me but never really found the right one, or one that worked well enough and was easy enough to keep going for me to stick with it. I’m great at starting things but not so good at persisting if they’re a hassle. But then I discovered bullet journalling (I can’t remember how) 3 years ago and have never looked back. I honestly don’t know how I got through a day without my bujo.
And whilst I have a creative business (as you can see from my table surface in the video!) and so really appreciate attractive design, what I discovered very early on is that I am too busy for pretty when it comes to my bullet journal. So the video tour below shows my “stripped back” version which does what it says on the tin, after trial and error and experimenting with various formats and trackers from pinterest which ended up not really working for me.
So this is one for all you other busy women juggling running a business around kids, I hope it helps…
Claire
PS if you’d like more tips, ideas, inspiration, tools and templates that are perfect for mums in business then don’t forget to sign up to receive emails via our website.
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