How To Balance Work And Family And Still Remain Sane

photo credit: James Jordan

eBiz Parents know how hard it can be to balance work and family. Whether you are building your online business (in every spare moment possible) after your full time job or whether you work online from home it can be a huge struggle to make sure that neither work nor family are neglected. It’s a total juggling act, in fact. Sometimes we just have to sit back, take a breather, and read a post like this. 🙂

Here are some tips on how you can make it all work without losing your sanity.

Set clear work and family times. Define when you will work and when it is family time and stick to it.
Plan ahead. Make sure things you are working on are taken care of AND completed before you go out on that Saturday afternoon picnic (ah, can’t wait for summer) with the family. If you let work hang over your head you’re less likely to enjoy yourself out with the family.
Time management. We all struggle with this on a daily (sometimes minute) basis. Manage your time so that you are as productive as possible. Ask yourself if – is what I’m doing right now leading me to my goals or away from my goals?
Setting goals and realistic expectations. We only have 24 hours in a day. If you only have two hours to devote to your online work then just get done what you have to get done – and be done with it. Set daily, weekly, and monthly realistic goals. Plan out how you will achieve them and then do it. Just be realistic and know that you cannot work 24/7.

Here are more resources on finding balance between work and family:

Balancing Work & Family

Alan Johnson On Work Life Balance

Side Note: Sometimes balance can mean work/family integration. Recruit the family for business purposes! Think of something the kids can do for you to help you in your business. Or maybe there is task the whole family can do together. If anything at all the kids will start to learn entrepreneurialism – and that’s priceless.

If you have any tips please post them below in the comment section!

How To Find Post Ideas For Your Blog

As I dive into the challenge of focusing on writing the best blog content for one month I’ve been thinking of some ways to create content. Successful blogs are never short on ideas. Ideas feed our posts and are the lifeline of our online businesses. We have to be able to write great content and continuously improve on our writing skills to make it online.

Here are some ideas to stir up your mind so that you can write the best blog content ever!

Google Alerts – I’ve been using this for a while now. It’s a great way to get a wide view of a certain topic. You can get alerts from blogs, city newspapers, etc. Just type in your keywords and get updated every time someone writes on that topic.

Look To Your Local News – Pay attention to what they are talking about on the news. This is what is popular and what people want to hear about. Find an idea from the news story that relates to your topic and integrate it into a blog post.

RSS Feeds – What are others in your market talking about? Look at popular posts within your industry. Can you extract an idea and build a great post with it? Can you take the topic and write about the opposite?

photo credit: IntangibleArts

Handy Dandy Notebook – I use Google Notebook on the computer (but I also have a notepad nearby to jot down ideas when I’m not on the computer). This is invaluable and I’m going to be going through my notes for this month’s challenge. I have a ton of ideas in my handy dandy notebook (Blue’s Clue’s all the way :)).

Mind Mapping – Mind mapping is basically a diagram of words and ideas. It’s brainstorming. Darren at Problogger wrote a great article on mind mapping. Check it out for more detail. It’s a great exercise.

Yahoo Answers – Some questions on Yahoo Answers are truly silly but there are some good questions asked. Find out what people want to know about your topic and post the answer to their question on your blog.

Stats – We’re not supposing to be checking our stats too much during this challenge. But, for research purposes ;), dig into your stats. Find out what posts have been popular. Check out which posts have the most comments. Find out what questions have been asked. Find a common theme and write on that. If you’ve been blogging for a while dig into your old posts. Is there an old post you can update with more information?

More Ways To Find Post Ideas For Your Blog:

10 + 9 Ways To Find Great Post Ideas For Your Blog

10 Killer Post Ideas

37 Viral Post Ideas You Can Use Today

101 Great Posting Ideas That Will Make Your Blog Sizzle

Cool Tool: Here is an interesting plugin call Post Ideas that I just came across. It is supposed to help you with managing your ideas.

Get inspired and write the best content you can! Feel free to post more ideas in the comment section!

Challenge: Write The Best Blog Content Of Your Life

I just came across a post over at Daily Blog Tips that is challenging readers to do nothing but write the best content you possibly can for one month. Do not worry about checking stats or promoting your site. Just interact with your readers via the comment section and write, write, write. The thought is that success will follow. You will get more subscribers, traffic, and link love. Ultimately, this will translate into more opportunities for making money. Success will follow – believe it.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while because I KEEP getting side tracked with other little projects. This has caused me to not be consistent in developing this blog and others. For parents who get unfocused easily (like me)…I challenge you to write the best content you can for one month.

After the month is over you can access which articles performed well and which ones didn’t. This will give you an idea of what your market is looking for. Then you can write on those topics more.

Good luck and remember to stay focused on writing the best blog content you can possibly write! I can’t wait to see the results!