So far, you have created a vision for family and business, and you’ve set some attainable goals. How are you going to get everything done and feel great at the end of the day? It will take a system. Or two. Or three.

When my week runs smoothly, it is typically the result of me creating a plan and following through with it. All events have made it into my calendar and I refer to it throughout the day. I have made a menu plan that works around our schedule, bought the groceries and have the recipes out and ready to use. I’ve made a list of goals and tasks for the week and have been diligent and focused in my work. I’ve built in some self-care activities to reconnect with myself and others.

Three years ago, I decided to figure out what Facebook was all about. In the beginning I made an honest mistake – I accidentally sent a friend request to EVERYONE I had ever emailed from my Gmail account. Within a week I had over 100 friends!

I discovered high school classmates and business colleagues. I sent out friend requests to people I’d known and liked. Eventually I began getting friend requests from blog readers and other birth workers. Occasionally, I began getting friend requests from people who saw I was a friend of their friend, or I was on a forum they were a part of. Sometimes I’d reject a request, but most of the time I’d accept them all.

A few months after I joined Facebook, I came down with bronchitis which turned into pneumonia. I was bedridden off and on for about 3 months, so I decided it was time to decipher Twitter, since reading and clicking was about the only thing I could bring myself to do during that time.

As much as I use my Outlook calendar and love my iPhone to track my appointments and important dates, there’s something about using a paper-based planner that just works well for me.

About a year ago, I found a great website called Productive Flourishing that’s run by Charlie Gilkey. He writes great articles about time management and getting organized, but what I really love is that he offers, for FREE, great printable planning calendars. And, he updates them each month. If you subscribe to his newsletter, you’ll be invited to visit his “secret lab”, where you have access to the month’s planners.

Are you writing these emails from scratch every. Single. Time? If you are, consider creating email templates from those old emails so you can recycle them from here on out. Then when you need to send out responses or new emails, all you do is select your template, personalize it a little bit, and hit the send button!

I have tried a lot of time management systems – the ol’ trusty Day Timer, one big list, prioritizing tasks in a list, scheduling tasks in blocks of time…

Balancing your home life while building your birth business takes practice and experimentation. Many birth professionals are also mothers of young children, and much of the work we do managing our businesses is at home while we’re also mothering and running the household. As business owners, how do we make time for it all?

For the home business owner, time management is critical for maintaining peace of mind and peace within your family. It’s important that you be as productive as possible in the time you set aside for work so you can enjoy life more when you’re away from it.

We each have 24 hours in a day, in which we have to fit in eating, sleeping, exercise, working in and on our business, taking care of our family, and the other responsibilities we have in our lives. In every moment we have choices – staying present in the moment and working mindfully based on our values and goals, or tending to the fires that have to be put out throughout the day.

Does your email drive you crazy? Is your inbox overflowing? Do you check it often throughout the day and find yourself getting sidetracked and not getting other stuff done? Yeah, I’ve been there too. Here are five tips that might help:

Do your days run you? Do you feel like you spend a lot of your time reacting to what’s going on around you right now than deliberately planning your day? Are you ready to slow down and take control of your schedule? Are you ready to do more meaningful activities and live more consciously?