Strategies and Tactics for Women by Dr. Shannon Reece

I know that a lot of my readers are WAHM’s (work at home moms) who are masters at scheduling time between family activities to run thriving businesses. Moms or not, sometimes we all need to be reminded to take time to refuel our creativity. I am happy to present this great guest post from Elizabeth Cogliati, who shares her best strategies for keeping the creative fires burning for her business success. Thanks, Elizabeth!

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As a woman entrepreneur, with two small children, I find myself short of time every day. Not just time for my business, but time to recharge my creativity. If I don’t take that time for myself, I am unhappy and my business suffers.

I make time for myself every day, to write in my journal, read some poetry, and write my own poetry. When I do this, I find I am much more creative and energized to create products for my crafts business and take care of all my business needs.

I have a very small window of time in my day for myself, two and a half hours while my children are in school. In that time, I must fit in time to write and recharge my creativity, check all my online business items – email, chat boards, my online shop, and create new items for my shop. My strategy for getting it all done is to stay focused. I don’t let myself get distracted. Laundry can wait, housework can wait, Twitter can wait. All those can be done later, when my children are with me. When I am alone, I focus on getting done exactly those things I cannot do with small children, and moving quickly from one task to the next as I complete each one.

Apply this advice to yourself:

1. Make time for yourself. Schedule it like an appointment.

2. When it is your creative, personal time, make sure you fill it with things for you. Don’t get distracted by chores or things you can do another time. Make sure this time is for you, and is spent meeting your creative goals. You don’t have to be busy, though. If your creative goal is to add meditation to your daily routine, then sitting and meditating, though not outwardly productive, is exactly what you need to be doing in your creative time.

3. Write in a journal. Write down a few of the challenges you are facing, personally, creatively, and with your business. How will you tackle them?

What do you do to recharge your creativity?

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Elizabeth Cogliati is the owner of Lizbeth’s Garden. She makes handmade, beaded tassels, potpourri and dried flowers, and other crafts. She also writes essays and poetry, some of which can be found on her blog, http://lizbethsgarden.com.

Connect with Elizabeth on Twitter, and Facebook.