If you are the parent staying home to work, you have several luxuries and additional challenges. Nothing is more profoundly demonstrative of the "balancing act" than the dual roles of home-based business owner and parent. The juggle of career and family is truly put to the test. So what's a mother, or father, to do?

Managing your time well, being disciplined and working diligently at the best possible time are three skills that provide some of the key answers to that question. But, probably the first step is to gain order within the working and living environments.

An orderly, easy-to-maintain environment will greatly enhance your creativity and effectiveness. If you are distracted by too many commitments and too much clutter, you will find it difficult to focus on your work and your family. Simplivying is then the first order of business in your life as a home-based business parent.

Here are some ways you can simplify your personal life to gain additional balance.

1. Learn to say "no." If you are constantly saying you are too busy, then you probably are! Why are you so busy anyway? Are the tasks occupying your time really benefiting you in the way you would like? You must learn to say "no" gracefully when the activity will not be to your or your family's benefit. If the aactivity would get in the way of being with your children, completing your own commitments or having free time to yourself -- say "no."
2. Plan ahead. When you write down the next day's tasks, you can begin each day without stress and dread. When you have several pressing things to do in the morning, do what you can the night before. Leave big, readable notes in obvious places.
3. Clean up with thought. Don't just shove items into drawers or cupboards in order to avoid dealing with them. Put things away by asking, "Where will I look for it again?" and "Can this space be its permanent residence?"
4. Reduce the activities of your children.I get a kick out of parents whose children are participating in a half-dozen activities all at once! How could a chld possibly put enough energy into all of them to enjoy them or acquire the skills to do them well? If you want to simplify, does the idea of not being a full-time taxi service appeal to you? Children dneed to learn balance and simplification too. What are we teaching them when we overschedule them?
5. Hire help. You can't do it all alone, so get help, whether that be a babysitter, a personal assistant or a friend to trade off watching the kids. Find some way to have time alone to do work and to think. Brain time takes quiet time and that rarely happens when children are around.
6. Match tasks to opportunities If you have a two-hour window of time, use it for your most pressing work. Don't do the dishes. Dishes can be done while children are around, but making an important call to a potential clinet cannot. Do things around the house when dhildren are home -- they can follow you and when old enough they can help with business chores, like stuffing envelopes, folding flyers, etc.
7. Create Time (you like this one, huh?). From where, you might be asking? Wase up early; go to bed late. If you can get quality time bfore the kids wake up -- even if that is before the sun rises -- then do it. You can find extra time for your needs if you plan for it and use it.

Another solution to achieving balance is to get your environment organized and create systems. You may wish to consider hiriing a professional organizer for assistnace in this area. This process may be a little time consiuming for you depending on your current state of chaos, but I promise that the return will far outweigh the time investment in the long run -- and probably sooner!

What does "getting organized" mean? that's a nice way of saying you have to "clean your room" Start at one end of a room and work your way around, removing anything that is in the way of your goals. If you have a stack of magazines that boase a date in the early 1990's, it probably is safe to toss them. Put thigs that are sitting out into a cupboard or cabine t with other like objects so that you can find them all again. That is, if you even need to keep the item any longer.

Really determine what you are likely to use in the future and what you are just holding on to if you suffer from the "what if" syndrome -- "What if I decide to take up basket weaving again?" "What if I want to study organic chemistry again?" "What if I ant to order something from that catalog one day?" These types of thought s are what get people stuck. Push past those thoughts and throujw things out. If you determine that you could use the informatino again, if you need it, then keep it. But don't waver over what to do with old stuff -- toss it.

Once this process is complete, the next step is to manage your time. You need to be able to discipline yourself extremely well as a home-based business worker/owner as there is no one there to do it for you. If this doen's come easily for you, youwill have to practice. Determination will carry you through and make it happen for you. The main point is to learn to schedule your day the night prior and attack your most pressing work first -- prioritize and stick to it.

Set reasonable working hours. If you try to do work with uncooperative children during "their tim" you'll become stressed, aggravated and yell a lot. Avoid this by setting the itmes when you will work and when you will play with the children. I work when my children are in schooll and don't even answer my phone after those hours.

When my dhildren are home from school, I am with them. We are talking about their day over afternoon snacks, working on homework or simply being home together. We play, talk, do chores, read books, and entertain their friensds once in awhile. I am home for them and don't consider stickin them kin from of the TV an appropriate use of their time. We all get dinner ready and sit down to eat together. It tis at theses times my office door is closed -- and I am not in it.

These simple policies will be the start to really opening up opportunities for better balance as you work as a home-based business parent. Just remember to keep your values in check and you highest priorities in the forefront of your mind at all times.

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Juli Shulem has been a Professional Organizer, Time Management Consultant, and speaker since 1984. She is also the author of "Home Based Business Mom," Newhoff Publishing, 1998, ISBN 0=9661578-1-8. To get in touch with Julie send email to jshulem@aol.com, or contact her at 1-800-843-6722

Reprinted with permission from Arizona Networking News, (480) 951-1275.