FINDING THE BALANCE

It's been three whole months that I began working from home and it became apparent really quickly just how hard it is to separate working life from, the rest of my life. Before Babies and Beauty became my full time job, I worked in a nursery, out of the home and it allowed me to shift into a complete different head space when I popped my uniform on. For all of the perks being self employed has, the ability to define work time vs me time isn't one of them and it's something that's taken me a whole twelve weeks to find my balance in that spectrum. I've dabbled at either end, but I think I'm finally settling somewhere in the middle.

Before blogging became my job, it fell firmly into the hobby category and whilst it feels surreal at times to think you can convert a hobby to a career, here I am talking about the first three months of doing just that. Each week I have three whole days that I can dedicate my all to my job, no children around, no distractions and no excuses, time goes in and content comes out. Five o'clock arrives and I veer my mouse towards the start menu, click the shut down button and walk away signing my working day off as done, right? Wrong. That's the ideal, but it's not the reality. Working for myself has brought me a brand new problem that if I'm entirely honest, I didn't think would be much of an issue before it actually became one. You see when Babies and Beauty was solely a hobby, it was easy to get lost every evening for hours in it, tweaking my theme, scheduling social media, editing photos. Blog time was me time, I could unwind and feel content just milling around in my emails or interacting across social media. Things are a little different now, though I am just as passionate and get as much enjoyment if not more than I did before from doing this, there has to be a line, I have to have something else other than my blog, we need 'time apart' so to speak. Which I even want to laugh at myself thinking about it, Emily calm down it's a website not a new boyfriend - but it's true. The line between work and home was completely blurred for me and I was beginning to find it harder and harder to switch off.

Every career blogger I know works it differently for them, some work solely in the evenings as they've got children to contend with during the days. Others have their little ones at school and when three o'clock hits, their laptops are closed and they are firmly in parenting mode, and still there are others who are completely encompassed by their blog - I was beginning to fall into that category and I didn't exactly want to be there. I wanted almost a physical line between when work ended and home life began, so I made one, in my mind at least. I gave myself a work down routine. A what? I can hear you say. Just like any other job role, I have a time I finish for the day and two steps I must do before I can clock off. Check my emails and then write a to-do list for the following working day. So far so good. I'm not stuck glued to my phone at 8pm replying to emails, nor am I worrying about what I didn't get done and still have to do. It's helped me push the work flow back that was slowly seeping into my personal life. Weekends are mine, they're ours, I'm on track in the week so that I can be off track over the weekend. My boys need me and heck do I need them, we're all feeling like we've got the best deals and for the first time in so long I feel like we're managing the balance so well. 

It's easy to get caught up in things you have to do, and with the computer just upstairs I could nip off to finish 'one quick thing' and before I know it hours have flown by. You don't get those hours back, and I don't want to lose the love I have for my job by massively overworking myself. The best part of being self employed means that I write my terms and conditions, if I need a day to just get on with housework because it's falling behind I can do that, or if Noah needs me to watch his harvest assembly I'm there in a heartbeat. It also means that I have to prioritise and compartmentalise my life so that I still have one. In the evenings now you're much more likely to find me three seasons deep into Real Housewives, than you are tweaking the colours of my links. Sure there are times when I can't get an idea out of my head, but it's nothing a little scribble on a piece of paper can't solve. Each day I feel less and less like a juggler trying to keep all the balls in the air, and like a woman who has her stuff together. Even if it's just in my head.