As a mompreneur, I'm constantly engaging in the failing strategy of multi-tasking. Responding to emails while helping my daughter with a puzzle and answering a question from my husband. And then a twitter direct message pops up. And the UPS guy rings the doorbell. And the cat jumps up to knock over a drink on the table. Then the phone rings — it's my mom who wants to talk about my sister's upcoming wedding in September.

How is it possible to get work done in this environment? How can we be productive … when we're working at home, running a household, and taking care of our kids? Here are a few tips: More on Is Distraction Inevitable? 6 Tips to Get It Done

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If you've read the blog for a while, you know I'm constantly advising you to delegate more, using the power of leverage — but don't necessarily hire an employee; instead hire an independent contractor "Virtual Assistant."

A true Virtual Assistant owns her (or his, but I'm using her to be pithy) own business & has multiple clients — which lets you avoid dealing with employee tax or other employee admin issues. Yes, they cost a bit more than some kid from the local college, but this makes sense — you are saving money by no employee taxes, admin, or benefits costs — and a VA is theoretically more experienced/skilled.

But working effectively with a Virtual Assistant does not start when you sign the contract. You have to figure out which tasks, or even better, which roles, to delegate to your new staff. Can't tell you how many times I've heard a solo-entrepreneur tell me they hired a VA on retainer but have not yet given them anything to do (for months!).

To give you some ideas, below are some of the tasks/roles delegated to my two primary Virtual Assistants: More on What Do Virtual Assistants Do, Anyway?

Episode 7 of Chronicles of a Mompreneur Video Show is the first in a series titled "Everything I know about business learned from my 3 year old daughter."  This episode is titled "Be Willing to Walk."

Have something on your to-do list that you've been procrastinating forever?  Maybe your bookkeeping or taxes, or your desk organization, writing your book, cleaning up your kid's toys, writing new copy for your website, or finishing up a client project? 

Here's the secret — instead of working on your big project or task, just do it for 15 minutes.  More on You Can Do Anything in Just 15 Minutes

Chronicles of a Mompreneur Video, Episode 5: The Vomit Factor, or How to Lead a Life Extraordinary

"Here's what I've learned about the difference between the rich & famous, and all of the rest of us …"

This book is not about dating or your relationship with your significant other — actually, that's just the fun & sexy title to get you to read the book.  Really, Marie Forleo's book, "Make Every Man Want You (or Make Yours Want You More):  How to Be So Damn Irresistible You'll Barely Keep From Dating Yourself!" is a self-improvement book about how to clean up your junk & enjoy your life, regardless of who else is living it with you.  The idea is that once you love your life & are enjoying yourself, everyone (including potential mates, clients, friends) will find you irresistible.

I would have never picked this book up (since I'm married) except that Marie and I are in a mastermind group together.  But I am SO GLAD that I bought and read her book, because I immediately put into practice & changed some little but major things in my life that have already improved my happiness and my relationship with my husband. 

The #1 lesson I put into practice:  "Life Is Now, This Is It."  More on Make Everyone Want You

More on Cure Email Addiction Using RescueTime (video)

"Learn the Simple System to Take Control of Your Cash Flow in Just 15 Minutes per Week … So You Never Are Surprised About Your Checking Account Balance Ever Again!"

Fellow small business owners -

Like most of you, I've struggled with fluctuating cash flow over the years.  Everything from the boom-bust cycle of client projects, to using personal credit cards to finance the business, to creating useless reports in QuickBooks, to setting prices too low, to never being able to predict income.  You would think that as a financial expert and attorney I would know how to do this stuff, but they don't teach you how to manage small business cash flow in school.  After investigating all the un-helpful software and books available, the only solution was to develop my own program to take control of my cash flow, and my life!

This Money Meetings system is what I'm sharing with you in the new Cash Flow Coaching Program.  In the Cash Flow Coaching Program, I lead you through the steps of my Money Meetings System AND help you implement the system for your own business, so your business cash flow turns from a struggle to automatic.

Through this program, you will learn:  More on Take Control of Cash Flow - only 10 spots available

I've been working on developing the next big program for Grow Up! Strategies, and was struggling.  Ugh.  It was a big, complicated continuity membership program, with tons of content, and since it has so many parts it was hard to explain.  The marketing copy was difficult to write … and I had a ton of work to do generating all the content.  None of it was getting done. 

So I went to my Mastermind group meeting in Palm Springs to work with the other 18 group members on our businesses.  As I was sitting there on the first day, I had a mini-revelation.  More on If It's Not Hell Yes, It's Hell No.