Mommy's Musings

When building a business, the standard advice it to visualize your goal, and the steps along the way then focus on your plan to get there.  However, none of us live in a vacuum and life has a way of throwing us off course.  How do you know what to focus on and what is just a distraction?  The trick is to prioritize and that should be easy but when you have many responsibilities which takes precedence.

E-commerce entrepreneurs tend to have many irons in the fire whether multi-channel selling or multiple businesses.  I have colleagues that sell on many different e-commerce sites and others that have multiple business being educators, sellers, broadcasters, and bloggers.  Most work for themselves but others like myself have contracting jobs with other companies or work for clients as well as themselves.  The only way for it to work and to work well is to figure out which projects can be automated, and which require your  undivided attention.

The most important strategy to managing all of it is you have to realize that not everything can be dealt with at once and multi-tasking will only get you so far.   I am the queen of multi-tasking but I am finally starting to acknowledge that when I try to do to many things at the same time it just takes that much longer to get any thing finished to my satisfaction.  Right now I manage several online stores, some on eBay, some on Amazon, and some on Bonanzle.  Some are entirely mine and the others I have managing responsibilities.

I have noticed over time that the work I do for others tends to take priority over my own e-commerce presence and there is a very good reasons that is should be that way.

First, I have made a commitment to others to accomplish a certain task.  I tend to take my commitments to others very seriously, my word is very important to me and if I do not stand behind my word, it has no value.

Second, once these projects are completed they will be much easier to be automated.  The majority of the work I do for others is managing their inventory on their various selling sites so once it is listed, then all that is required is to either relist or remove as the items sell.  The largest amount of work is in the set-up.

Lastly, these are cases where I can work smarter not harder.  These stores make money for me on a regular basis, and all that is required it to answer customers questions, and list the inventory.  Others do the packing and shipping.

This all makes logical sense as I write this and sounds like a great plan doesn’t it.  Now here are the issues that can foil the best plan.  I manage stores for 2 different people.   I have a basement full of inventory I need to list for myself.  In my personal life I have a husband who is disabled, he had a traumatic brain injury while in the Navy which causes seizures and memory issues, and he is also dealing with PTSD.  I have a grown son who is married with 2 children a 2yr old son  and 7 yr old daughter.  Here at home with me is my  2 younger children an active 8 yr old son with ADHD and a very dramatic almost 4 yr old daughter with some gross motor challenges.  Then I have all the other tasks required to manage  a household along with older parents to make sure I make time for and  an elderly couple that lives down the street with some major medical challenges that we are really the only family they have.

So are all these things distractions or things that require my focus.  I can honestly say it depends on the day, the hour and the minute.  Each one of these things is important in its own right and under certain circumstances can assist me in following a plan or completely derailing it.  One sick kid, can throw off any plans for an entire day.  I stayed home after my youngest was born to be able to participate in school activities for both of my younger ones.  So those are some of the choices I have made.

Right now, I have set up a priority list that works for me.  During the day, it is the kids, family, parents, friends and house.  If my house is not as clean as my mothers so be it.  It is good enough for me.  Then in the evening when the kids are in bed I focus on doing the listing for the project that makes me the most money.  Right now it is for one of the stores I manage for someone else.  When I get that one all listed I will focus on the other one that I manage for someone else.  I know both of these projects will increase my household cash flow, they can be done in a schedule that works for me and my household and will soon be mostly automated.

On the days, when I can find a spare hour or 2, I will start working on some of my own personal inventory.  It is much more time consuming as it is all one of a kind stuff that requires research,  photographs, descriptions, and different types of packaging for shipment.   As I finally rehome all of the inventory I can start using that cash flow to purchase more products in a more stable line. I do realize right now that all that product downstairs is a liability rather than a asset but there is a time for everything and everything in its time.  So I can continue to move forward within the grand plan of working smarter not harder.

So which of the things that you focus on are actually important and which are distractions and how do you know the difference?