Being a work at home mom isn’t easy. There are a lot of interruptions, extremely detailed calendars, and the need for flexibility! I’ve been doing this for over five years now, so I want to share my tips for working from home with kids as a food blogger today. (However, these apply to any work from home mom!)

5 Tips for Working from Home with Kids as a Food Blogger

This post is sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks, a product I truly love and recommend.

My top priority is being a mom, and I am so grateful I run my own businesses which allow me to make my own hours and rules. But that requires discipline and hard work. Here are tips to help me make sure I keep on schedule and don’t lose my mind!

Set a schedule and stick to it! For me, this means getting into a routine. Meals, gym time, school, work hours, all of it. Not only does this make my kids happier because they no what to expect throughout their day, but it forces me to not get distracted and waste time. (I’m looking at you, mindless Instagram scrolling!)
Use tools that make your work more streamlined and efficient. As you know, I can’t stop raving about the QuickBooks Self Employed program. It handles my receipt capture from purchasing foods and tools for food blogging, tracks my mileage as I drive for work, and my favorite part: invoicing! Gone are the days of updating an old PDF file. I can keep everything in my QuickBooks Self Employed program, where it syncs up with my bank accounts, and taxes, so I can make precise estimated quarterly taxes. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read my last post about doing taxes as a food blogger here. Sign up for a free 30-day trial to QuickBooks Self Employed here.
Give yourself realistic time and space to get your work completed. You know you have a project that will take you five hours? Add two more hours, and chunk out the work accordingly. For example, when I have to shoot a recipe for a client, I know that one hour will be driving and grocery shopping for supplies. Then it will take me two to three hours to make, shoot, and style the photos, which need to be done in daylight hour, as I shoot in natural light. Then I have to spend two to three hours editing and writing posts, and an hour on administrative tasks. (You didn’t realize how time consuming food blogging is, did you?! Or you did, because you are a boss food blogger mama, too!) These can be broken up into chunks over the span of a few days. For this reason, I only do two posts per week at a maximum. It’s what works within my personal bandwidth and meets our needs. Don’t be afraid to set those limits for yourself.
Get your kids involved in the process where you can. As a food blogger, half of my work is making food and shooting it. It’s very active and creative, which is great for my kids to see. I want them to know their mom works hard, and that they too can find fulfilling and financially rewarding work in a creative field. And what better way to teach them than getting them involved? They like to help pour ingredients in the bowls, or hand me spoons and bowls for prop adjustments on shoots. I love being able to spend time with them in that regard, because it’s not as enjoyable when I’m trying to answer emails. 😉
Hire help when you need it. There’s no shame in hiring a babysitter a few hours each week to get all of your work done. I know some food blogger moms who do batch content creation, meaning they devote an entire eight-hour work day to creating all of their content for the week. And then they can spend the rest of their week focusing on their mom duties. The point is to use your resources available to you, and follow your intuition for what works best in YOUR situation.

Hope these tips for working from home with kids is helpful and inspires you to do the same!

I am proud to say that I continually hit my business goals for The Butter Half, and my food blogging conference, Tastemaker Conference. And it’s not just dumb luck. With a lot of planning, tools like QuickBooks Self Employed, and a supportive network of friends and family, I am able to live the life I designed.

And it’s an incredible feeling.

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