I get asked a lot about how do I do it all? Be mum, work part time as a teacher and still run my Close To My Heart business. The honest answer is at times I don’t know.

Take today for example – it is my one day at home with no children. Mr 3 is at Kinder for 5 hours. Happy dance. But I really have to be on top of my game in this time and not let myself get distracted. So I try to schedule my time and stop letting distractions creep in.

This was my day today – after two crazy weeks of craft expos and the CTMH Convention my craft room/office looked liked a bomb exploded. So to not let myself get distracted by the desire to clean up the mess I moved out to the dinning table and got to stare at baskets of folded washing (that my wonderful husband had folded this morning before going to work) that are awaiting my children to put them away after school tonight.

Now advance my day by about 6 hours…. I’ve done all the mum stuff and now I’m pretending to be paying attention to TV shows that hubby and I like to watch together whilst I type the remainder of this blog post. But my morning was productive. I set a timer for 20 minute blocks. It seems to make me work more focused and I work my way through my to do list. Sometimes things are perhaps being done later than I’d hope in a month. But done is better than not done! And I’ve had to train myself that I can’t always get things done as perfect as I’d really like.

I also try and batch tasks together that are similar and thus save myself time and effort (it prevents that chopping and changing of tasks that can slow you down because you have to stop and change focus – which can be really hard). I find it easy to do for example all my computer based stuff on one day, creative stuff on another day, kit prep and different day etc. It doesn’t always end up that way. But it’s a plan and something to aim for. Above all else a to do list is essential to my day and I try to write it the night before so that I’m focused for the next day.

One of the tasks I set for myself today was to unpack my convention goodies and photograph them because I want to share them all with you.

Our CTMH Convention is open to all consultants regardless of their level in the business and it’s a great chance to share ideas, participate in business and personal training and of course creative training. It’s a chance to see consultants from Australia and New Zealand and swap ideas. The team that I am in did some designated them card front swaps. With the aim of these being that we can bring them home and use them during April in our businesses. Then on top of that I had a stash of cards to swap with other consultants that I met over the weekend. I’ve labeled these random.

The other big part of Convention is the recognition. We have a big Gala Dinner on the last night and awards are given out for things like Sales, Recruiting, Leadership etc. I was presented with a beautiful trophy for being 5th in Australia for Recruiting. I’d have to say it’s one of the favourite bits of my business – sharing the love of memory keeping and teaching others how they can get a discount and/or build their own business. And I was very excited when one of my downline was award Top of Sales for a First Year Consultant. Congrats Laurie.

The biggest answer I can say to those that ask… I do it all because I love it. I am a very passionate memory keeper and I love sharing with others my passion. We always find time to do what we love. Second to my family, CTMH to me is a life I love.

If you’d like to find out more about join the CTMH family you can check it out here, or send me a personal email.

Thanks for reading if you’ve made it to the end. Sorry it was such a long one.

Until next time,

Happy Crafting

Danielle