I was talking to an old high school friend recently about the beauty of owning a small business. During our conversation, I was sharing bits of advice on working for yourself, gaining clients and producing a quality product. She hopes to have kids someday and will be able to have an office outside of the home. Telling her how blessed she’ll be to have home and office separate (so that she’s not tempted with work all the time) reminded me of a few things I’ve recently done with JFP (and myself!) to help balance family life and running a business. Maybe some of you other small business owners out there will find these things helpful for you, too??

1. No more than two portrait sessions/meetings/JFP functions during the week of a wedding. If it’s Sunday and I have a portrait session Tuesday evening, client meeting on Thursday evening, wedding on Saturday, and someone emails me to schedule another meeting that week, I tell them no…and I automatically look to the next week’s calendar. While my Monday, Wednesday and Fridays may have been clear of JFP responsibilities, they’re not clear of family time. If I didn’t restrict my work calendar, I’d never see Brian and Ally. That’s not fair to them and it’s certainly not fair to our family life as a whole. Besides, I’d miss them…and who wants to be working all the time anyways!? 🙂

2. Portrait sessions that are more than 30 minutes from Morgantown, WV must be done on the weekends. Even if I’ve restricted the number of JFP functions in a week, I still want to maximize my time at home on the days I do have work, especially evening work. I don’t want to run out the door as soon as Brian gets home, spend an hour driving to a session, spend an hour (at least) with my clients, and then spend another hour driving home. That’s already three hours and I didn’t leave home until 6:30!  It’ll be Ally’s bedtime when I return and then it’ll be my bedtime…and I’ve had no opportunity to hang out with the family. If I cut my drive time down by half, I have at least an hour with the family before bed. So all “farther away” sessions are saved for the weekends, when Brian is home all day and we can actually hang out as a family for a significant amount of time before or after I work.

3. No JFP emails on my phone! It may be hard to believe, but I don’t have my JFP email account “hooked up” to my phone. When I switched plans and phones in May, I decided not to activate the email account. As much as I tried not to become distracted by my work emails during non-working hours when I had my old phone, it was hard…and I didn’t always succeed. You know as well as I do that it’s tempting to check Facebook, pin things on Pinterest, scroll through Tweets and read/answer emails when it’s all at your fingertips. Now when I leave the “office”, I really leave…and don’t get into emails until the next work day, and I’m not distracted by work during family time.

By implementing these three practices, I’ve found myself enjoying more time at home and less time feeling stressed and disconnected. I can sit in the living room and watch TV with Brian and Ally after dinner…and watch them swim together in the pool…and go to Rita’s for Italian ice. I definitely don’t want to resent my business because it keeps me too busy. I want to love my business because it’s heavily influenced by me, makes me happy and enables me to help provide for my family. I think balancing family life and business will keep that love going. 🙂

And speaking of family, here’s a sneak peek from this morning’s super early session. Fresh and hot off the press, people! Miss Livia is six months old and I just love her baby rolls!