Monday, May 16, 2011

What's A Good Number?

So, I work from home as an online contractor. I also pick up other various moneymaking gigs as they come my way. As a whole, I work from home. Why? Because I enjoy and love my children. I don't want them to have to go to daycare where they can get sick just walking in the door. I enjoy spending my time with them at home. We play, giggle, and have a good time.

Well, I sit here and wonder what is a good number to make on a monthly, or even yearly, basis for a household of two boys under the age of two? Right now I only push myself to make enough to get by. I think I should work more and strive to make a certain number each week, month, and year. However, I'm just not sure what those numbers should be. I sit here and think about numbers wondering if I'm shooting too high or too low.

My main source of income is writing. I know how much I can make an hour and although working 8 hours a day would be ideal, it's not always possible. I have two main projects and if I take three days each week to work on my smaller project and the other four to work on my larger project, I think I make more than enough. If I can buckle down and work 30 hours over the course of 3 days on the smaller project and 32 hours over the course of 4 days on the larger project I can make a good amount of money. My bills will always be paid, things I want to do for the kids and DB will be taken care of, and I can work on paying off some debt.

Where do I fail the most? I stay logged in on Facebook and Yahoo while I'm working and get distracted. I think I need to really start treating this like a real job. No social networking, messengers, or cell phone while I work. I think I need to actually set a schedule. On the days I do the smaller job, I need to work longer; 10 hours. I will still be tending to the kids and I'd like to break it up. The kids generally don't wake up until 10am. So, I think I will start working at 7am each morning and work until noon. That gives me 3 hours I can work straight through. Naptime happens at 1pm, so I will probably take a nap with them sticking to this schedule. Then I'll pick working back up from 6pm-11pm. The kids are in bed at 8pm usually, so that gives me another 3 hours I can work straight through. On the days I work on my larger job, I only need 8 hours. So, I think I'll from 8am-noon and 6pm-10pm.

I think I like the idea of having a schedule. This schedule will go into effect tomorrow. I need to get a good night's sleep. If I can stick to this, which I hope I can, then things can really change for my family. I am glad I have finally come up with a plan. Being a single SAHM can be challenging, especially when I work from home. I think breaking it up and having half of my work time happen when the kids are sleeping will really be beneficial. I can spend a good amount of time with them when I'm not working. Do you work from home? What do you do? How have you learned to manage your time effectively?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I still need to work on the whole time management thing. I'm a sahm with 2 kids and no other job and still can't seem to stay on top of things!

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