Business Basics: Health & Wellness When Working For Yourself

By Jennifer Goldberg, mom, writer & editor of The Cultured Bohemian

When you have your own business, you are responsible for everything, not to mention giving yourself vacation and sick time. Time management skills are especially important when you work from home, because you can easily get distracted by the phone ringing, the baby crying or dog barking.

I pretty much make my own schedule and have been working from home for the past several years. Starting my new business wasn’t too difficult from the working alone perspective because I was used to working independently. Not having to go into an office and answer to a supervisor has worked out wonderfully for me for many reasons. Chief among them is even though I can never take them, I have unlimited sick days. That is, until last week.

One of the things I am doing as I am writing my blog, Cultured Bohemian: Garage Sale Glee, is puttingwhat I am learning into practice. All summer I have been preparing for my own big garage sale to see if what I’ve picked up throughout my research really works. I planned to have my garage sale last week and as I was preparing for it, I twisted my back. Not just any old twist, but one that brought on a herniated disk. Most people who have a herniated disk are better in about 4 weeks. Since I don’t have 4 weeks to get my disk back in order, I got over to my doctor as soon as I could and put the garage sale on the back burner for now.

Given that I don’t have an office to travel to or a supervisor to check in with, it was easy for me to immediately stop what I was doing and make a doctor’s appointment as soon as she could see me. Having childcare is also extremely helpful and I was very fortunate that I had my sitter around that day. For those who have had a herniated disk, you know how painful it is and how taking care of kids would be extremely difficult if not impossible without a lot of Advil or something stronger.

I’m still limping around and moving slower than I would like to, but I am in the midst of physical therapy which hopefully will help. We working mothers sometimes don’t recognize how much we do until we just can’t do it. This herniated disk situation made me realize what I actually do and how I need to really take better care of myself (and indulge in a massage!) because I take care of the whole family, just as you all do.

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