Super Woman I am Not

Keeping Things Real

More times than I like I get the question “how do you do it all?” I don’t. I really don’t.

Some have said that I’m their hero because of all I do. This bothers me because I feel like it sets up a false standard which other women will compare themselves.

I plan to write a post about how much I don’t do, or what I use to help me do what I do, so that everyone will understand when I fail and so that things are kept realistic and other women won’t try to reach a level that I don’t maintain myself.

Meet Kathryn

In June I went to Denver, Colorado to attend the MomBiz Retreat to help me find a balance between work and family. I was working around 50 hours a week, but it was not a pattern that could continue because my family was suffering. Many systems were taught to help manage business and time, but one thing they stressed was outsourcing what does not require ONLY you to do.

I came home with a fire under me to find an assistant. Thanks to a contact given to me while at the retreat, I found someone in just a week! That someone was Kathryn, who blogs at Mommy Kat and Kids.

We had a little “honeymoon period” but in next to no time Kathryn was up to speed and taking care of so much and I was able to spend more time with my family.

What does Kathryn do for me?

• Each week she mines the blog to find older content to share on Twitter and Facebook. She lets me preview the tweets/posts and add anything I want, then schedules them using my Hootsuite account.
• She pins neat photography/editing posts she finds to my Pinterest account. Everything else pinned there is all me.
• When people ask how to do something, or if I have a tutorial on such and such, she will go search the blog and link back if there is a tutorial.
• She is beginning to answer emails about ejunkie links and purchases, like when someone needs their download reset due to a crashed computer or being on vacation and the link expired.
• She is going through old blog posts and fixing all broken links and videos.

What Kathryn does not do:

How this helps you and me:

Having Kathryn answer emails/FB/twitter questions helps out the person asking because they are getting a MUCH quicker response than I can give (due to homeschooling).

It saves me from having to spend time at night answering those questions and it gives me peace of mind while homeschooling to know that many who need help are getting it in a timely manner.

Why am I telling you this?

I try very hard to be “transparent,” meaning I don’t pretend to be something that I’m not. I cannot do it all; I have help.

Also, I am telling you this so you won’t think I say I am doing one thing but then actually doing another. When you see “me” online at Twitter or Facebook during school hours, I am not goofing off from teaching my children. I really am in our school room teaching them and you are really seeing Kathryn.

Are you a work at home mom and drowning?

If you have a home business and you are struggling to keep up, think about hiring a virtual assistant. Think about what things are taking up a lot of your time but which do not require your expertise. Those are the jobs to outsource to an assistant.