Ask Alissa: How To Balance Business And Back To School

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5 mini-challenges to work through to get started with your online business: https://www.alissamcdonald.com/starterkit 

In this episode of the Teacher Hustle Podcast, Sam from @engineerdoeseducation asks about balancing school life with home life AND a business. 

“Hey Alissa, it’s Sam from Engineer Does Education. I was wondering if you could talk to how you transfer from summer mode into back to school mode when it comes to your business. I feel like over the summer I finally got ahold of how to do everything from creating and marketing my products to working on my blog, my e-mail list, Pinterest and Instagram, and now that school is back in session I have grading, I have new content I’m creating for my classroom- that I’d love to put on TPT, but when I get home it’s family time and grading time. So I’m just struggling to balance it while still giving my passion the time it deserves. Any tips?”

It’s that time of year! Summer is ending, and we don’t want to neglect our online business, but there just isn’t enough time in the day.

For many teachers, September is also the season of having big hopes and dreams for our plans for the upcoming school year, which means this is the time that actually our businesses are expected to kind of ramp up because teachers are in need of new resources for their classrooms!

All the things we wanted to do over the summer are not done and now September is here and we need to focus on our classrooms. What do we do with our business? Do we just let it go? Do we drop it? How do we keep it going when we're expected to be doing all of these things with school? 

First, give yourself grace! If you didn’t finish all the things that were on your summer to-do list, if there are a million more things you want to do, that's okay. There will always be something more to do in your business- that’s what makes you a great entrepreneur!

But give yourself the gift of September. You are not going to finish all the things at this point that you need to do for back to school season when it comes to your business- that time is over. Whatever you accomplished on your to-do list, you did! And whatever you didn't, you didn't! We can’t change that.

Let’s focus on the future! We’ll be talking about how you can rest, reflect, and organize during September and use the upcoming quarter- October, November, and December to meet your end-of-year goals.

• Rest: Really! Give yourself September to focus on school and family. We need rest in our business the same way every cycle has a “down time”.
• Reorganize: You need systems for your business, and the sooner you begin to implement those systems, the sooner you’ll see growth and feel a sense of peace in your business.
• Reflect: Look at where your efforts paid off and how you can set goals moving foward

The problem with our business is that when we do sit down to work, there is nobody to say, “Alissa, today you're going to focus on your blog, and don't you do anything else because your job is to work on the blog tonight!” 

I'm going to give you a process for how you can set a goal for next quarter and how you can achieve it. 

If you’re anything like me, at a buffet I fill my plate to the brim and eat maybe a quarter of it. Don’t do that here. Don’t set your task goals so high that you’re unable to get it done. Make it easy enough that it's achievable. Simplify it. 

What are the smaller tasks you need to do in order to complete that larger task? What do you need to learn- what do you need to create-

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit poppd.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit poppd.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thatteacher.substack.com