First things first, for some context — I have had my business for 8.5 years! I’ve been a mom for almost 3 years now. My business has evolved a ton in these 9 years. Today, I mainly sell digital products and online courses and host this podcast. 

Ever since Colin was born almost 3 years ago, I've worked part-time hours with an average of three days of work for the last two years and even less than that his first year of life. I’d say as a business owner, I’m all about growing slower and not letting your business take over your life. I’m all about not doing random stuff that just wastes time and doesn’t move your business forward (if you can avoid it) 

While I often hate sharing vague numbers, I’m going to here because I do feel like it makes sense in this episode. With my business, I am able to pay myself a multi-6-figure per year salary with these part time hours in my business. And believe me, I am so grateful for it. 

I truly think it's a blessing from God that I'm able to run my business this way and I also think it's something that I worked hard on and that doesn't just happen by accident. I've had this vision the whole time I've had my business. I've not gone through a season where I was working insane hours, burning myself out, offering too many things, and saying yes to all the things. Growing slow has worked and I also have really, really strong systems in my business. 

Read more: How I Run a Multiple-Six Figure/Year Business Working Part-Time as a Mom (+ Challenging the 40-Hour Workweek!)

 

 

My Schedule Over The Last Two Years

For the last two years, my oldest, Colin, has gone to a preschool, three days a week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Those 3 days have been my main work days, and then on Tuesday and Thursday, Adam and I would split the days. That worked really well, and I got into a good work rhythm this way! But of course, what works is always changing (especially with kids!).

With Colin, we did try a nanny and Mother’s Day Out but neither felt right for us. When we tried those, he ended up having a lot of separation anxiety. We kept him home for the first 14 months (with a lot of juggling and help from family!) and eventually, we did put him in preschool for three days a week and he’s been doing that ever since. 

 

Hiring a Nanny

We knew we couldn’t realistically do that again with Ethan because Adam had more work going on now that he’s a therapist (he was in grad school before). We knew we needed a nanny. While I was pregnant, we actually worked up a family schedule to work towards that included Colin's childcare at preschool, a nanny for Ethan two days a week, and then three days where one of us was going to be with both of them or with just Ethan. 

We could have enrolled Ethan in the same preschool that Colin’s at but I really wanted to keep him at home longer than that. I like the idea of him having the individualized care of a nanny and me just being able to pop in and out all day while he's with the nanny, which is how it literally looks, and I absolutely love it.

In order to find a nanny, we tried Care, and made the listing actually at the very end of my pregnancy. We wanted to find someone early ideally, and were hoping they would be willing to wait until Ethan was closer to 3 months old to start. This felt better than trying the moment I was ready to come back to work. 

We didn’t have much luck with Care though. I interviewed one person from there, but mainly the people who replied to the job posting were flaky and didn't write me back after I followed up with them. Which was strange because back when I was a nanny (one of my many side jobs when I was starting my business), I was on Care and got a lot of jobs that way! 

From there, I tried Facebook groups, specifically a Young Life group, which ended up being much better. That was ultimately how we found our amazing Nanny. We connected through the group, and interviewed her on the phone first, then in person. Then, we offered her the job!

Having Incredible Childcare Help

 The nanny we hired is absolutely wonderful — truly such a blessing, especially when with Colin we struggled to find good child care help at first when we needed it. Without sharing too much personal information about her, she is just lovely. She has prior experience in a daycare setting with newborns, so that felt perfect. She’s an aspiring musician (and super talented!) and has another part time job too, so she was happy to do part time with us. She’s just so good with Ethan too. I love that I know he’s in great hands with her, and that I am just upstairs working, and they are right downstairs and I can go see him/her any time. Or help her if needed. 

I can also help manage his schedule with her, so we’ll text and talk about “extending his naps” or how much food he’s had, etc. while she’s with him. She also is a professional laundry folder (she used to do it as a side job in high school), so usually on the 2 days she’s here, I’ll give her laundry to fold and she does that during Ethan’s naps when she’s not having to hold him. Honestly, laundry is insane for us right now. We’re doing laundry daily. So having help with the laundry folding is huge. One less thing I have to do as a mom. 

 

 

Our Current Schedule Now That I’m Back From Maternity Leave

So right now, what are we doing? Now that I’m back from maternity leave, Ethan is almost 5 months old and our days look like this (with exceptions popping up always!):

• Mondays: Our nanny comes and she’s with Ethan while I work (usually from 10am-5pm)! Colin goes to preschool, usually from like 8:30 until 4:30 or so right now. Adam is at work that whole time in his office doing counseling.
• Tuesdays: This is more of a hodge podge day right now. Both kids are home, and Adam and I take turns working. Last week, for example, he went into work for a few hours on Tuesday morning, and I was solo with the kids all morning and had a playdate with a mom friend and her 2 kids! 
• Wednesdays: They are the similar to Monday other than Adam usually works late so I’m alone with the kids. 
• Thursdays: Thursdays are the same as Tuesday! 
• Fridays: Fridays are my solo day with Ethan and Colin is in school. I take Colin to school on Fridays because Adam works really early! And then it’s just me and Ethan having solo time together. I’m trying to use Fridays to mainly focus on time with Ethan and then other things I want to accomplish for our home (for example, last Friday I went shopping with Ethan for stuff for the house). I try not to work on Fridays!

 

Our Vision for the Future

This is working for us now, but we came up with a goal schedule for when we adjust more to life with another kid for what Tuesday and Thursday will look like. And that goal will be that one of us is working on Tuesday and then the other one is with the kids (then vice versa for Thursday). For now, I'm wanting to keep Fridays solo, just being Ethan. 

We're working towards that in little stints because we like having all the time together as a family right now. I’d say that’s the biggest reason why we haven't just adapted to that for Tuesday and Thursday. We really like doing different things together as a family because we can do that and we've worked our work schedules and our life to where that's possible. We want to take advantage of that and enjoy it.

Read more: 7 Ways To Use Your Money To Get More Time Back In Your Life (Trading Your MONEY For Your TIME!)

 

Why We Chose To Do Childcare This Way

I’ve talked about this stuff many times on the show, and so before I get into it I want to remind you that I truly think you should do childcare, however it makes sense for your family, your desires, your finances, all of it. Just because I do something does not mean I think it’s the only way or even the best way. It’s all so individual to your unique family. 

For us, we (Adam and I) have always wanted to not do full time child care for my kids, even though financially that would give us the “most gains” to just both work full time in our careers. This is something we were both on the same page about before we started our family even. Neither of us wanted to stay home full time, but we both wanted to do BOTH.  

 

What’s Been On My Heart As I’m Back From Maternity Leave

I have felt very much like God is working in me right now with motherhood and work things. This has been going on for me, feeling like God's really speaking to me about this and working out some things in my life since I would say October of last year. Almost a year ago now. I was pregnant at that point with Ethan when I started to really feel like God's stirring at me about this stuff. I've had a few times where I've truly heard God speak to me about motherhood and work and his desire for my life. Maybe I'll do an episode about that in the future once I'm done processing all of this with God because I do think it would be a really cool story to be able to share with you. 

Basically, it all started with a prophetic word that someone on Showit’s team actually spoke over me at an event last year. At the time, I felt like it meant one thing and then slowly God has been like, “Hey, wait, that's actually not what I meant”. So the moment I realized what God was truly trying to tell me, kind of happened when Ethan was about one month old, I was up for a night feed and literally felt God talked to me of like, “Hey, what he said, I actually meant this”. 

Since then I've had other days where just in subtle ways I’ve felt other people talk to me about something or specific things happen in my life where I know I’m on the right track. 

 

 

With all that said, with all that super vagueness that I just shared, I am very much in a listening space right now of honestly trying to be superintendent to God and letting God make my motherhood and work schedule. I’m letting him really be the leader of my business and where it is headed and trusting him with this season where I feel like I hardly have any time to work. 

Hopefully you can tell if you're new here, I adore this business. It lights me up. I feel called to this business. I truly feel like God has me where I'm meant to be doing things like recording this podcast for free, making my courses, making my templates. But I do feel like God has been tugging at me to work less and less and be with my kids more and more.

I really feel like I have had him just tell me to trust him in that endeavor. I know it doesn't make sense. And even right now, you're going to see this cool title for this episode, but yeah, I'm only working two days a week. I have a successful business. I get to be with my kids more. 

But it does feel scary at times and it feels really hard and it can feel like I get behind on things. I'm recording this episode one day before it's going to air. I feel like I have to say no to more things. I've been working on my new website redesign for a year now. But I have just felt God being like, “Hey, just trust me with this”. 

Read more: Business Growth is NOT Linear: Lessons From Starting a Business Young, Growing it as a Mom, and Learning to Trust God

 

What I’m Working On Now That I’m Back From Maternity Leave

Now, my biggest focus coming back is my new website and rebrand. My team and I have been hard at work on this! Huge shout out to Stacey who has been designing with me (and Christy now that she’s back from her honeymoon!). I’m hoping to launch it fairly soon! It takes a lot of time, some pages I’m totally redoing from ZERO, so it’s a ton of work. I also released a new podcast rebrand, which we finished up the podcast art since I’ve been back from leave. 

Other projects going on in my business now that I’m back from maternity leave:

• Recording new interviews for this podcast! 
• Creating new add on template designs 
• Sponsorship agreements and partnerships 
• Preparing to teach at Spark / Showit designer retreat coming up (Grab your ticket here and use code MCCRAVY100 for $100 off!)

So it’s been a lot! And things are moving slowly and I’m saying no to more things. But it’s OK. There are less meetings. Anything that can be a loom video is. That’s been a focus for me so I can spend more time actually getting things done in my business.