For many Enterprising Moms, and moms in general, it’s a constant struggle … finding enough time to meet the numerous demands of daily life, never mind the quest for a little professional fulfillment and personal joy along the way. Is there time for it all?

According to one study, there’s plenty! John Robinson, a time researcher who’s often referred to as the father of time, says that working moms have 30 hours of leisure time per week. So, where’s the disconnect?

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and mother of two, Brigid Schulte, like many of us didn’t believe it. So, she did a study of her own time and shared her findings in the February 17th Sunday Washington Post Magazine article, “The Test of Time: A busy working mother tries to figure out where all her time is going.” The controversial article kicked up storm of discussion on the subject of moms and leisure time, how we define it, and how we spend it.

At this June 8th event, Brigid will share her experience in researching and reporting the piece and the conversations that ensued as the topic exploded in print, on the web and even lead to an appearance by Brigid on the Dr. Phil Show!

Opening with a talk by Brigid about her experience, the event will feature an interactive discussion and exploration of time, work, leisure and how we define and experience them all.

Do you have 30 hours of leisure time per week? Tell us about it below and join us on Tuesday, June 8th

About Brigid

Brigid Schulte is a reporter on the Washington Post’s Local Enterprise Team, a group of narrative writers that look for compelling and insightful stories that help explain how we live now. She came to the Post in 1999 to cover education, winning a top National Education Writers’ Association award for a series exploring the achievement gap. She has since written human interest, narrative and feature stories on everything from dying bats and the way the healthcare debate feels on the street to a lost jar of marbles and the plight of struggling Iraqi refugees in America for virtually all sections of the newspaper and Washington Post magazine.

She has won a number of journalism and writing awards, including the National Association of Black Journalist’s award for sports writing for a four-part series on a high school basketball team comprised almost entirely of immigrants or the sons of immigrants. She was also part of the team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for covering the Virginia Tech massacre.

Schulte wrote about national politics and national affairs for Knight-Ridder Newspapers’ Washington Bureau before joining the Post. She also wrote about southern politics as the Washington correspondent for the State Newspaper in South Carolina and covered the environment and the Pacific Northwest for the Seattle Times and other western papers in the Washington Bureau of States News Service. She has worked at newspapers in South Carolina and Wyoming, written for national magazines like The Washington Monthly and trade publications like The Harvard Education Review and taught English in Japan for two   years. An Oregon native, she graduated with a degree in English from the University of Portland and later obtained a master’s degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

Door Prize

Special thanks to Jenna Caudillo of JA Creative, provider award winning marketing and creative services to businesses and nonprofit organizations, for the following door prize:

We Grew It–Let’s Eat It!
DC twins Annie and Veda learn about the White House veggie garden and want to grow fruits and vegetables, too. But how, if you live in an apartment? Watch the twins and senior gardener Ida work and play their way through planting, tending, and harvesting in a neighborhood Community Garden. Then comes the fun of preparing and eating simple, tasty, homegrown food!

A picture book for young readers (ages 3-8 — Pre-K- Grade 4)
By Annie and Veda as told to Justine Kenin
Full-color photos by Becky Lettenberger
Designed by J.A. Creative
56 pages, soft cover 8.5” x 11”, with recipes and books for further reading

This is the third book they have collaborated on with Tenley Circle Press.

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As an Enterprising Mom, I’m usually prepared for just about anything, so I need a lot in a handbag. I’m on a quest for the perfect handbag – though, as I tell my kids, perfection does truly exists, except, perhaps in nature (and chocolate). But, I do have an ideal in mind.

Do you have one you love? If so, do tell.

I have a good idea of what I’m looking for and have included some specs below. If you know if a bag that fits, please leave a comment below with a link to where it can be found if you know it.

The Particulars …
For daily use, needs to accommodate:

• ~ large wallet
• ~ planner
• ~ a book or two
• ~ bottle of water
• ~ the little things (chap stick, pens, keys, glasses, phone, etc.)

Important features:
large opening and not one that gets more narrow at the top
something with lots of pockets to keep things organized

Bonus features:

• ~ can accommodate a laptop on occasion (not a deal breaker)
• ~ color or patterned interior (to be able to find things more quickly)

Does it exist?

Thanks!
Carolyn ~ Chief Enterprising Mom

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Angela Hazuda Meyers
President/Owner
Meyers Marketing Strategy and Standing Room Only Event Promotion

Type of Business: B2B. Conduct B2B, B2C marketing programs

Industries: Marketing and Events

Product/Service: Marketing (Strategic, Executional, Interim & Retainer) and Event Promotion

Years in Business: 6 months

Ideal Customers/Best Referrals:

• Small–midsized businesses, non-profits and associations who need help growing their organizations.
• Small-mid-sized organizations who don’t have enough funds or work for a full-time marketing director, but realize they need the function filled, or firms who have recently lost their Marketing Director and need a stand-in until they re-hire the position.

Personally speaking …
I am so sad to say that right now I don’t have much to fill in here.  I do a little knitting in the winter, I like to plan the kids parties with theme events and lots of fun activities, and I walk in the early AM with a group of women in the neighborhood and thoroughly enjoy my “adult time,” but other than that this is an area I am working on!

Home life:
I have a hubby of 5 years Patrick.  We have a romantic story of meeting, falling deeply in love, he quit his job a month after we met so he could be stateside (after knowing each other for only 2 weeks) then moving in directly with me literally after the taxi dropped him off at my house and getting engaged a year later on top of the Eiffel Tower – but sadly not much romance post kiddos! I have 3 wonderful children:  Grant (3.5 years old), Rhett (20 months old) and Charlotte (8 months old).  They are fun and keep me hopping, most days it’s wonderful and other days it’s a handful!

Childcare situation:
I have full-time, in-home care.  I attempted to go it alone without care, but with 3 under 3 at the time and now with them only 6 months older now, there was not enough quite time in the day to get any work done and not a quiet moment to talk to a client.

Motivation for starting your businesses:
A passion for marketing and helping other small businesses grow AND a desire to be more connected and present in my children’s days.

Greatest benefit of running your own businesses:
Flexibility.  I try to fit in a few events with the kids during the day each month, we walk to preschool and back and I have lunch with them at least a few times a week.

Greatest success you had in the past month (personal or biz) and how you celebrated it:
I got 2 new clients for my business.  I called my hubby.

On your nightstand:
A notebook to jot down late-night thoughts and to-dos and a few children’s book, Oh and 1,000 Places to See Before You Die – But it hasn’t even been cracked open (I got it for Christmas) and I certainly haven’t scheduled a trip yet!

The one tool, resource, or toy you just can’t do without:
Sneakers.  I love getting out a taking a walk or jog to energize or blow off steam.  I try to walk most days with the kids or at least get outside for a little fun.

Last purchase for self:
Blackberry

Favorite way to unwind:
Wine a little…

Best advise or tip you ever received (personal or biz):
My mom said – You need to start your own business.  After positions in various companies I was frustrated with an organization’s lack of vision, inefficiencies and inability to execute.  Many companies get in their own way on a regular basis and I want to help them advance.

Best thing about being an Enterprising Mom:
There are more than one BEST to this one…I love working for myself because I get to be involved with so many exciting businesses and work for a number of different clients, which is very fulfilling.  It’s an opportunity you don’t have when working for one company.  I also love showing my children how mommy works, getting them exposed to alternative work environments and in the future I look forward to them understanding that they can do whatever they want to do as they grow up.

Connect and learn more:
MeyersMarketingStrategy |  Standing Room Only Event Promotion

LinkedIn |  Facebook |  Twitter

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During our first session, Terry asked lots of questions about what was working and what wasn’t. We discussed what support systems I currently have in place and how I would like things to work. During the course of our discussion, we uncovered some of my sticking points and what made them sticky for me.

A few of the key points that really shifted my thinking …

• I’m a highly visual person. If a thing is not in my line of vision, it’s likely to fall off my radar. What I learned is that my visual cues (polite term for ‘overflowing step file holders’) are overstimulating and overwhelming; and that there are more visually appealing and less stress-inducing ways of keeping track of active projects. Music to my ears!
• Many of the systems I have in place are well thought can work well for me, once I work out all of the kinks. For instance, I have numerous email accounts to help me keep track of different types of email (bills, personal, shopping, business, admin, networking, etc.). While some people use filters, I chose different accounts. My system for separating email works, but the way I process my email doesn’t. I’m working with Terry to implement a system to process my in-box and keep it empty.
• Most of the projects I’m working on require large chunks of time, something I rarely have. Terry helped me to shift how I think about my projects and my progress on them. By breaking projects up into smaller tasks, scheduling blocks of time for tasks (even as little as 15 minutes) and using a timer to keep me on task, I can make steady progress and achieve a sense of accomplishment while working towards completion.
• I don’t have to start from scratch. Terry explores how I work, what works well, and then works with me to put structures in place that support the way I work. So, it’s not about implementing a canned system, but building a system that works with my work flow.

These may seem like obvious things, and on some level they are. But discussed with a productivity expert in the larger context of prioritizing what’s most important to me and maximizing my time, it’s quite powerful. By making just a few small changes in the way I work over the past few days, I’ve already seen an impact and my motivation is quite high!

Next, we’ll work on my time. Stay tuned…

In the meantime, what’s most effective for you in managing your email, your schedule, your paper? How do you manage it all?

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In an effort to get ahead of the game, last year I read and implemented some of David Allen’s principles from Getting Things Done, which has a cult-like following in productivity circles. While I gained valuable tips and tools for getting some things done, because I’m time challenged, like most Enterprising Moms, I haven’t found the best way to integrate some of the more critical pieces of the puzzle.

Enter Terry Monaghan, of Organizing For Your Life. I first heard about Terry when she was recommended on The Enterprising Moms‘ discussion list as a person who helps “working women increase their productivity and therefore their income by managing their time and cutting out the clutter and nonsense that bogs us down each day.” When I read about her, I thought she sounded like someone I need to meet. At the same time, planning was underway for a series of Enterprising Events and we decided to take a fresh approach to the typical business seminar/presentation — we decided provide a before and after portrait as applied in a real-life situation — a makeover.

So, I got in touch with Terry and we’ve arranged to do a makeover on yours truly! I’m absolutely thrilled at the opportunity to work with a productivity guru who’s worked with corporate executives at Fortune 100 companies and solopreneurs, many of them business-owner moms, to help them ‘get more done in less time.’

Our first session is tomorrow. Stay tuned updates as this process gets under way.

::  © The Enterprising Moms  ::

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To get up to speed on QuickBooks, I took a QuickBooks class last month at the local Women’s Business Center. I then locked myself behind closed doors for most of a weekend and entered all of my 2007 data. While brain was aching by the time I finished, it was such a relief to have captured all of that information in a place where I can make better use of it using QuickBooks reports. Diving in with both feet really sped up the learning curve and has made tax prep (almost) a breeze.

Get QuickBooks!

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