Anyone who is a working mother, whether inside or outside the home, knows that organization is the key to survival. As a homeschooled mom working from home, as well as away from home, I’ve had to get a little creative to make my business and family work.

First of all, you need to involve your family in your business. At my Avon business, this was very easy. Homeschoolers need gym classes. My kids are some of the best runners I have ever seen. They deliver books to doors, wheel carts down driveways, and get plenty of exercise delivering books and orders for me. To reward them all we are going to swim after all that running exercise. Also, I started giving my kids “Avon Bucks” instead of an allowance. They can use their money to buy whatever they want from my catalogues. It teaches them to budget and save for the things they want, and it doesn’t take that long to reward them for their efforts. Now that I am expanding and have started two other businesses in addition to my Avon business, they are very excited. Once your children, spouses or significant others see the benefits of your business, they will be happy to help.

Meal planning used to be a big challenge for me. I have a house full of picky eaters. For a year, I had a different kid cook dinner with me every night (7 kids, 7 nights) and within a year, everyone, even the little ones, could cook a simple meal. Now I only cook on my day off or on major holidays. The rest of the time the older kids take turns cooking, and Dad and Uncle Greg cook on the weekends.

We have a VERY big house because we have a very big family. With two dogs, seven kids, an uncle, and four toilets, it can get really dirty. We have a chore chart and everyone has chores to do. Failure to do homework results in a loss of privileges. When everyone does their homework, the house runs smoothly. I am in charge of the finances (because I am an accountant), the laundry (because I like to do it) and the purchases of our household. I do a load of laundry early in the morning (5:00 am) and one late at night (10:00 pm). Even with our large family, it never backs down except when we return from vacation. We take our 15 passenger van once a week and do most of our shopping at Sam’s Club.

Still, you might wonder, how do you work part-time, study at home, and run three businesses? I am the queen of programming. I live and die according to my schedule. If there’s a game, cheer practice, dentist or orthodontist appointments, you better put it on my schedule. My family knows that if it’s not on my agenda, it doesn’t exist. We have a very routine-oriented life. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I work as a bean counter at the local animal shelter. I’m in and out before most of my family gets out of bed. From Tuesday to Friday we are at my Avon Licensed Beauty Center. We do a whole week of school work in the back room. My teenage sons who work with me do their homework on the front lines and call me if they need help with a client. I work with the rest in the back. When school is over, they go home to play games and have dinner. At night, when the store is slow, I work on my other two businesses (both computer-based) and on the book I’m writing. On Mondays we do our shopping, deliver books and orders, and find an educational field trip to include in our trips. Our vacations are always educational and also work as excursions. Our school work and student portfolios are also very organized.

For those of you who are tired just reading this, let me say that I wasn’t always that organized. I used a combination of Teri Maxwell’s “Stewards of Your Homes,” http://www.Titus2.com, and St. Benedict’s Rule for Living in Community to get us to this organizing point. At a time when we adopted 4 children at a time, our hallway was a giant schedule board. We have evolved since then, but I will always be grateful to Teri Maxwell and St. Benedict for teaching me how to manage my time and my home.