Working moms and women business owners CAN own their lives - and here's how.

This morning, like most Sunday mornings, my family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast and a review of the Sunday Washington Post. While the rest of my family dives straight into the Sports & Style sections, I usually go straight to the Post Magazine's Date Lab to live vicariously through all of the fascinating unattached people roaming the streets of DC. But today, the cover story of the magazine Got a Minute?" caught my eye. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/11/AR2010011101999.html

The story examines the premise that busy moms say they are on the clock every second of every day. But is it really true? The article is research-based, relying on tests and studies developed by various time experts, research conducted by university professors, and experiences shared by ultra-busy moms (like most of us).

As a mom of two boys who refuses to outsource her childcare, and as the owner of a rapidly growing business now entering its 15th year, I can certainly empathize with the situations that were discussed in this article: checking the blackberry while on a field trip; being home with the kids after school but essentially ignoring them because of a mandatory conference call; sending my kid to school with a cold because I simply can't miss a day's worth of meetings; constantly saying to my kids, "I'll be there in a minute."

I guess it is because of these types of situations that stay-at-home moms (who I respect tremendously and envy occasionally) harbor some sort of resentment towards us. Do I think our kids are faring any worse because working moms consistently juggle too many balls at once, knowing that sooner or later, a few are going to hit the ground? Absolutely not. And in my upcoming book, I cover all of the valuable life lessons children of entrepreneurs learn along their parents' journeys. But that's a topic for another day.

Leisure time?? Really?

The article presents a compelling argument that despite our insane schedules, we are able to carve out "leisure time" if we make a concerted effort to do so. According to University of Maryland sociologist John Robinson, most working moms actually have an average 30 hours of leisure time every week. Most of the working moms reading the Washington Post article or this column are probably having a violent reaction to this idea, emphatically denying that they have 30 hours of free time from Sunday to the following Sunday.

But truthfully, I don't dispute this. Despite my crazy schedule and significant accountability as a business owner (which this article does not address), I fit in 60 minutes of exercise almost every day, routinely schedule lunches with my close girlfriends to keep me connected to what's really important, spend time at my synagogue, and try to never miss my monthly Mah Jong game. Throw in some date nights with my husband and one or two hours a week for my favorite HBO series, and I probably have a total of 30 hours of what Robinson would consider "leisure time."

I was a little surprised the topic warranted a cover story for the Post magazine. The topic certainly isn’t “newsworthy,” and I would even go out on a limb to say that it’s overexposed. And while I commend the author for the quality of the writing (speaking as a former Capitol Hill journalist), I really think it failed to address some key points.

It's all about choices.

First of all, we all have CHOICES. For the mom that is constantly checking her blackberry while on a field trip, or for that matter for the mom that chooses to skip the field trip because of a work obligation, that is a choice she has made. She CHOOSES to not switch her phone to “silent” and she chooses not to temporarily disable her email communication. She chooses not to use an auto-respond message that tells the sender she’s unavailable, and she chooses not to refer the sender to another person who can answer a need.

Getting over the self-importance.

Mobile communications has enabled all of us to be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that’s been tremendous in terms of work productivity. But it’s also elevated a concept that really needs to be put in its place, and that is the concept of SELF-IMPORTANCE. We all run around immediately responding to emails as if the world will end if we don’t reply immediately. Well guess what. None of us are so important that we need to be on call and available every moment of every work day (well maybe a few of us are, but I don’t personally know any of them). If all of us CHOOSE to stay in reactive mode all of the time – if we CHOOSE to not focus on one priority at a time and feel we must multi-task, then the end-result will be burnout, exhaustion, and the inability to get the most out of all of the situations in which we engage.

Losing the guilt.

Second, women need to give up the GUILT. The word “guilt” was mentioned a few times in the article. Women wear their guilt like a badge of honor. I define guilt as something that occurs when our preconceived ideas of what we should do don’t align with what we actually do. The preconceived ideas we have are the culmination of many influences that shape our beliefs: societal, friends, family members, religious traditions, what we see in the media and entertainment. We constantly compare ourselves to what works for other people and hold ourselves to those standards. Guilt is so overdone and exploited. It certainly doesn’t need its own dedicated article. If we adjust the expectations we assign to ourselves so that they fit in with our own lives, rather than trying to accommodate the expectations of others, much of our guilt will be alleviated.

The art of No and Delegation.

Third, all of the women in the article, and probably many of the women reading that article or this column, need to learn two crucial lessons that will be essential in making it to 50 without suffering a nervous breakdown: Saying NO, and DELEGATING. The author of the article laments that “the unfolded laundry in the upstairs hallway rises like the Matterhorn.” Sorry honey, I feel no compassion for you. There are plenty of cleaning services out there that will do your laundry, and I would venture a guess that you know plenty of families with nannies and au pairs looking to make some extra money by helping out busy women. So the excuse that laundry is cutting into your free time doesn’t fly with me. If you’re a mom that also works full-time, and you don’t want to sacrifice the free time you have with your kids, then you need to get some household help.

Regarding delegating, if you truly feel that “you are running fast and getting nowhere” because “entire hours evaporate while I’m doing stuff that needs to get done, but once I’m done I can’t tell you what it was I did or why it seemed so important,” then you clearly have to learn the art of delegating. Have you analyzed how much your time is worth? Have you compared that hourly rate to the rate of a college student that may be able to do all of the mundane tasks that are sucking your time and productivity?

Regaining control.

I believe a lot of our exhaustion comes from a feeling of lack of control over our daily lives, and our inability to find ways to become refreshed. If we can take ownership for our choices, get over the self-importance, adjust our self-expectations to diminish the guilt, learn to say NO, and learn to delegate the drudgery that can take over our days, two wonderful things will happen:

1. We will discover more free time.
2. We will enjoy our free time even more.

Added pressures for a woman business owner.

Finally, as a business owner, I want to address one more topic that this article didn’t address, and that is the weight of pressure and accountability that women business owners have. Now I am not, in any way, minimizing the balancing act that all working mothers have to achieve on a daily basis – which is the global audience that the Washington Post article clearly discusses. But women business owners face an entirely different level of pressure. I mention this because 51 percent of all small businesses are now owned by women, and it is highly likely that many of the Post readers are women business owners.

The pressures of business ownership go way beyond time management, and trying to navigate field trips, dinner, carpools, homework, parent-teacher conferences, and sick days (just to name a few) while balancing work productivity. In addition to maintaining some semblance of work-life integration, we also have the added pressure of tremendous accountability (just like our male counterparts have). Building and running a business is difficult for anyone. But as women and mothers, who naturally put the needs of others before their own needs, women business owners subject themselves to grueling daily pressures as we try to build organizational cultures that are both high-producing and nurturing while managing a loving household.

Grueling accountability.

As business owners, we are responsible for the financial well-being of all of our employees and their families. Our fiduciary obligations extend way beyond our immediate family needs. We have to bankroll the growth of our company by maintaining a healthy debt-to-equity ratio. We have accountability to our customers and partners who are entrusting their requirements to our firm. We have a responsibility to serve as mentors and leaders to other women who want to launch & build their businesses. Business ownership puts an entirely different spin on the concept of being a working mother. It adds an extra layer of pressure and accountability that a person can’t understand unless they live it. Combine all of these pressures with the desires of desperately wanting to be a hands-on mom, and it’s enough to make even the strongest business leader take pause.

Being a woman business owner is daunting and grueling. We spend our days simultaneously building an organizational infrastructure and building a family. We own the family’s success and failures, and we also own the company’s successes and failures. Some days, I yearn to be a woman that simply has a house to manage, or simply has a job where she collects a paycheck. Sometimes it really feels as if it is just too much to bear.

But in the end, it's worth it.

But then I think about all that I have accomplished, and I take responsibility for my choices. I think about the examples I am setting for all women who are blazing their own trails, and I think about the difference my organization has made in the lives of so many.

Like the writer of the Post article, I am blessed with a rich and full life. Do I feel I have too many things to accomplish and not enough hours in the day to do them all? Absolutely. Do I think I can learn to better manage my time? Most definitely. But I recognize that the life I live is a direct result of the choices I have made…raising a family, building a business, being selective with my free time.

And most importantly, I passionately choose to embrace all of the challenges that are put before me on a daily basis… all except the laundry.