Balancing Diapers & Deadlines: time management tips for work-at-home moms

Being a work-at-home mom isn’t easy. Pursuing my own career while also trying to raise and homeschool five kids is hectic (to say the least!) most of the time. That’s why I was really excited to review the Balancing Diapers & Deadlines course from Lisa Tanner Writing. Lisa is a fellow homeschool mom blogger with eight kids. She knows what it’s like to juggle kids and career from home. In this online course, she shares her practical, hands-on time management tips for work-at-home moms.

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Lisa says, “This course is designed to help busy moms find time to work on their business. It’s a time management and productivity course rolled into one, written by a homeschooling mom.” She gets what it’s like to work with the kids underfoot all day long. I don’t get to send them off to school and then sit down to write my blog. (If I’m lucky, they’ll work quietly on their assigned workbooks or play with each other while I attempt to write a blog post…)

What Motivated Me to Take Balancing Diapers and Deadlines

As I mentioned, juggling homeschooling, housework, and blogging isn’t easy. I’ve often wished that I could bilocate. Or I feel like I can manage two of those three hats, but not all of them. If I manage to meet some blog deadlines and homeschool the girls, then the housework suffers. If I do the housework and homeschooling, then I don’t get any blogging done (and feel grumpy, as that’s my creative outlet).

I often wonder how others manage this (without putting their kids in school). Is “balance” really possible, or is it a myth? So the very title of Lisa’s course caught my attention. I really need some time management tips for work-at-home moms! Lisa a homeschool work-at-home mom like me—okay, she has a few more kids, including one with special needs. So if she can find balance, then surely she can help me do the same!

Now the hard part about balancing things is adding something new… even if it’s supposed to help! I signed up for Balancing Diapers and Deadlines and then ignored it for a few weeks. Don’t do that!!! Once I started reading the lessons, I couldn’t get enough. Lisa shares where she started from, the systems she implemented to make change happen in her home, and how these time management tips for work-at-home moms have helped her.

Get Practical Time Management Tips for Work-at-home Moms

Balancing Diapers & Deadlines is an online, text-based course. It was super easy to login and begin reading through each lesson. I’ve done several online courses that are video-based, but I find this doesn’t work very well because of my five kids hanging around. As soon as I start any sort of video on the computer, they’re all hanging over my shoulders asking what it’s about. With Lisa’s text-based lessons, I feel very sneaky getting in some learning without having to tell them about it!

Each lesson in Balancing Diapers & Deadlines is pretty short—shorter than the average post on my blog. If you only have five minutes to pop into the course and read one lesson, you can do this course. The lesson ends with an “Action Step” that you can apply right away. If you have more time, you can keep going through a few more lessons (as I usually try to do). Write down the action steps so you keep track of them and actually implement them!

What I Liked about Balancing Diapers and Deadlines

From the very first lessons in Balancing Diapers & Deadlines, I felt like Lisa understands me. There’s a lot of productivity advice available online, for both moms and bloggers. This course combines those, recognizing that you’re a mom doing your career (blogging, direct sales, etc) with kids around. It’s not just about working or just about motherhood; it’s about both. This is why Lisa’s time management tips for work-at-home moms work!

Balancing Diapers and Deadlines really does show you how to balance motherhood and your chosen career. Lisa talks about systems that help her manage her housework, errands, homeschooling, and more, so that she can be productive with her blogging freelance work. She talks about keeping track of client deadlines so that they don’t get lost in the housework and homeschooling. I liked how realistic she is throughout the lessons.

Too many times, I’ve read a post that promises to solve all my productivity problems, but I finish it feeling worse than I did before because I’m not in a space to implement the tips. If you’re a work-at-home homeschooling mama, you won’t feel that way about Lisa’s course. Even if you can only read one lesson per week, you’ll be able to learn and do something that will improve your home and work.

Some of the things Lisa shares about in her course, like meal planning, are things I’ve already tried to do. However, I haven’t always been consistent about them. She also shares specific, actionable tips, including spreadsheets and downloads to help you. I had fun looking over her annual meal plan system and adapting it for our family!

One of the “big ideas” that I got from this course is how to spend time with my daughters. I’ve heard repeatedly how important it is to spend one-on-one time with your children. As a mom of five kids, however, that’s just left me wondering how to fit it in. Yet I don’t want to leave my daughters feeling like my blog or the housework is more important than theirs. I’m excited to implement Lisa’s system in this area, as I feel like it will really help my relationship with the girls (and Joey, once he’s bigger!).

Ready to implement Lisa’s time management tips for work-at-home moms?

Buy Balancing Diapers & Deadlines now!

Lisa Tanner is a homeschooling mom with eight kids ranging in age from 1-16. She works from home as a freelance writer, virtual assistant, and blogger. She also has a Master’s Degree in Elementary Reading & Literacy. She lives on a farm with pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits, and cows (as if the kids, house and blog weren’t enough work!). Her family enjoys playing soccer and board games together. She’s passionate about helping fellow mompreneurs and has a ton of resources on her website. You can find also find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.