Six years ago today, I gave birth to a baby boy for a couple who weren’t able to have kids of their own. The parents and I did had a baby-share arrangement for the first five months of his life so that Colin would have a chance to still be breastfed. At the time, I had no money. I mean really, no money. There really wasn’t a whole lot I felt I had to give, but I did have time on my hands and a womb that seemed to be constantly finding itself an occupant. Being a surrogate mother seemed like a good idea.

Now, I have money but no time. I am starting a really exciting new project, as if this website wasn’t exciting enough, and I have a one-year-old who is, um, busy. I found myself lamenting the fact that I didn’t have time to volunteer anymore. (Quick aside: you really don’t want to hear me lament. It’s a long, arduous, whiny and argumentative process. I’m not absolutely certain why my husband married me, but it probably has something to do with penance for past sins.) Read More

Somebody I love very much is dying and he will probably pass away quite soon. I haven’t had a shower in about a week because the baby has been sick and Jamie and I have been run-off-our-feet busy. We’ve been eating frozen lasagna and pasta because it’s fast and easy and I would like nothing more than to just eat a salad. With fresh vegetables. Ones that didn’t come out of a bag.

There is a time, in the midst of all of this insanity, that you have to put your foot down and say, “Enough”. There is a point when you realize that if you don’t start taking care of yourself, both physically and psychologically, you will burn out. Hopefully my post today will help at least one person realize that time before it happens. Read More

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you’re behind. Maybe very behind. So behind that there’s a very good chance you’re going to lose this job if you don’t get it done soon.

Let’s also say that you have ignored all sage advice to the contrary and have left this particular task until the last minute and now you don’t have enough time to get it done. Your only choice is to pull an all nighter. (Obviously we’re talking about you now and not me because I’ve never been in this situation in my life.)

When I Googled the phrase “How To Pull An All Nighter” I got a lot of tips that sounded like absolute garbage to me, but when I talked to the resident test market, he said some of the stuff would really work well for him. This led me to a groundbreaking discovery. Maybe, just maybe, we humans aren’t all identical. Maybe different things work for different people. Maybe the reason all the advice you’ve been reading isn’t working is because the guy writing it wouldn’t know you if he woke up in bed beside you. Read More

Hi everyone. Welcome to Day Two. Today, we’re still talking about time. Oh, did I say today? I meant tonight. For those of you in my time zone (or those of you who are stalking me) you’ll notice it is almost midnight. What can I say? Even for incredibly witty and intelligent home business gurus such as myself, time management is a bitch.

Up until the birth of The Smallest Business Partner (remember him? The one who needs glasses? I should set up a damn donation box), my method of adding an extra four hours to my workday was to stay up an extra four hours. This is a great idea and I completely recommend it for people who have no more than one commitment in their life.

For the other 99.837% of us, I offer these tips.

1. Identify time suckers. Read More

Hey everyone, and welcome to the first day of our four week tutorial on how to run a home business without killing yourself or losing your mind or your friends. Later on, when my computer doesn’t have a virus and I’m not running around madly trying to save all of my professional relationships, I’ll put a link in here showing how to get to the other posts.

For now, though, let’s talk about time.

I come from a family of home business owners. As far as I’m aware, my 68-year old father has never actually worked for an employer. He’s run a mustard business, a newspaper, a copywriting business, a publishing house, and given golf lessons, many of them simultaneously. (I’m not linking to any of his websites because I don’t actually like my father very much and he doesn’t deserve the traffic. He is a very good businessman, however, so we’ll take what we can use.) My mother was a freelance graphic designer while working in a day job as a marketing director. My grandfather ran an advertising agency from his home while raising four kids, basically on his own. This list could continue, but it’s already getting boring and you probably don’t care. Read More