Balancing Work & Family When You Run Your Business From Home

By Aiyana Ma’at

If you don’t know by now my husband and I are best friends, lovers, parents, and…business partners. We love, eat, sleep, & breathe our company, it’s mission , and the people we have the opportunity to serve. We were just talking the other day about all of the possibilities and ideas we have (or should I say Ayize—he’s the spectacular idea guy). Between running our amazingly & rapidly growing site ( I can’t believe how fast the site is growing myself some times when Ayize shows me the latest numbers—oh yeah, he’s the numbers guy too…smile), teaching our relationship education classes, providing coaching & counseling, and our speaking engagements we have a whole lot to balance with work.

And, then of course, there’s my babies. 🙂 We have 4 beautiful (and exhausting) children and they are the lights that light up our lives. We’re often in awe of just how much coordination and stamina it takes to manage 4 children–each with their own unique personalities, desires, and schedules. Between school, homework, school band (and practicing the trombone LOUDLY), chess club, french classes, yoga classes, cheerleading, and we’re adding golf to the round-up….let’s just say it’s a WHOLE LOT!

We also really try hard to make sure that we’re really spending time with each other as a family getting to know each other beyond the “familiar family” kind of knowing. You can be around each other but not really be spending quality time with each other. It’s so important to really “be” with each other.

So, are you as exhausted as I am just reading all of that and thinking about how much you have going on in your own family life? I’m sure you are. But, here’s the thing no matter how busy we get and how much we have going on we have committed to being intentional about how we live our lives from day today and how we choose to focus our precious energy and time. Here are some tips that I’ve found have really helped us as we live out lives from day to day:

YOU HAVE TO SET BOUNDARIES THE SAME WAY YOU WOULD IF IT WERE A 9 TO 5

This one has been hard for us but we are constantly trying to get better at  working smarter not necessarily longer or harder. I mean how productive can you really be when you’re up all hours of the night–night after night? I used to think “Hey, that’s how I operate but I know better now. Our bodies need sleep just like they need water.

AROUND 5 OR 6 PM YOU MUST BE LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO PAUSE WORK.

Many of us have small kids and they go to bed early. If you must finish a task do it once they’re in bed. During evening hours, family time is #1, work is far down the list of priorities. We usually do three to five hours of more work after the kids go to sleep.

DINNER TIME IS IMPORTANT.

This follows the first rule of stopping around 5pm, take a few hours, play with your kids, interact with them. Talk to your husband, family, parents, something but get away from the computer and be social with the people important to you.

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.

Its imperative that you get out of the house/office or place you work. Ayize and I try to find time as much as we can to get outside and go for walks. Going to beautiful places like parks or near water is very soothing to me and I feel like I can concentrate better.

Bottom Line. Life is a balancing act. Do the best you can and never lose sight of what’s most important: FAMILY

Aiyana Ma’at is the wife of Ayize Ma’at, mom of 4, and co-founder and owner of this website, BlackLoveAndMarriage.com, as well as PurposePusher.com. Aiyana is a Seeker, Motivator, Risk Taker, Explorer, & Overcomer. She is a self-described PurposePusher and does her best to live her life with self-awareness and intention. Some of her official titles include licensed psycho-therapist, certified marriage educator & relationship coach and speaker. She is clear that a part of the call on her life is to help bring insight and awareness to others so that they can “get out of their own way” and create the lives they want to have.