5 ways to survive a home business as a stay-at-home parent

This post is part of eMom’s great Second Group Project, answering the question: “How to leap from the security of a day job to a home business without collapsing under a punishing startup pace?”

There’s already a ton of resources on how to start a home business, so instead, I’ll focus on the top 5 ways to enjoy being a stay-at-home parent and startup founder.

Why am I qualified to be writing this? Well, with a Ph.D. in psychology in my back pocket and a child on the horizon, I left the budget-less comforts of working in a multi-billion dollar company to found and run an educational startup that creates personalized DVDs for kids.

It has been an amazing adventure getting Cuvid.com off the ground while raising my 18 month-old daughter, and here are some of the things I’ve learned along the way:

1) Be realistic. You'll have to face it, juggling babies and business means you are going to be less productive than you were in the classic business setting. Accept it, and find ways to maximize your work time, and be flexible. For example, a child’s nap time is golden as fertile work time, but as kids naturally adjust their sleep cycles and nap times, adjust your work schedule accordingly.

2) Get help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either on the business side or child-care side. The biggest up-tick in my productivity was when I began trusting others with my daughter. There are lots of solutions out there: day care, nanny share, babysitting neighbors, in-laws, friends… don’t be afraid to use them. We also started getting a cleaning service to help cleaning the house--- so cleaning time turned into work time… there’s only so much time in a day, so prioritize and outsource what you can.

3) Stay social. Social networking websites and online chats may seemingly replace the need to 'talk' to other people, but it is so easy to lose sight of how important real human contact is. Honestly, the biggest unexpected struggle for me in adapting to working at home (and parenting) was dealing with isolation. Regardless of what you think about your co-workers in a business setting, human contact is vital to feeling normal and improving your creativity… When I found myself having conversations with my chocolate Labrador and non-verbal 1-year old, it dawned on me I was missing people. Try using VOIP to talk to colleagues, and ...

4) Go mobile. Another huge productivity boost for me was going wireless. It was impossible to do anything on a desktop and maintain any reasonable type of parenting. Invest in a wifi-enabled laptop which will allow you send email while chasing your toddler. But more importantly, it will help you get out of the house and get into to a café so you can work and get some much needed human contact.

And since I couldn't get this post in on time for e-Mom's Second Group Project, the lesson that jumped into my top 5 is:

5) Stay disciplined. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Besides all of the business, personal, and child-related events that can interfere with running a home business, is easy to get distracted with blogs, social networks, news-sites, and content-sharing sites, so keep your eyes on the prize, and make sure to schedule these online time–sinks into your allotted day’s activities.

This post has been great because it’s provided the fodder for a bunch of other posts on the art of balancing parenting and business, so stay tuned!