Review: Mandi Ehman's Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too
By Melissa Batai
Mandi Ehman is the busy work at home
mom behind the websites, LifeYourWay.net and
JungleDealsandSteals.com. She is also a mom to four little girls and
wife to the "boy across the street" that she married almost
10 years ago. To say she is busy is an understatement.
Mandi is also the author of the ebook,
How to Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too.
If you are a stay at home mom who is
struggling to manage all of your different roles or you are
considering becoming a work at home mom, this is an excellent book to
read.
Make no mistake, this book doesn't tell
you how to be a work at home mom or how to find the perfect work at
home mom job. Instead, this book focuses on how to juggle all of
your responsibilities so you can enjoy your work and your family
roles.
Book Features
An Interesting Personal Story
A significant portion of this ebook
involves Mandi explaining her WAHM life. She has had a variety of
work at home mom jobs ranging from in-home daycare provider to
transcriptionist to blogger. Blogging is where she found the job
that is best suited for her, and she frequently works many hours a
week. In fact, her blog and other jobs, including managing aspects
of some other websites, have become so successful that her husband,
who was in the construction business, was able to quit his job and
become a stay at home dad who homeschools their daughters.
Mandi's tone is friendly, and I was
compelled to read more about her story and her struggles. She is
honest about the difficulties she faces as well as the priority
choices she must make just like many work at home moms. Thanks to
her relatable personality, this is an interesting section of the book
and can serve as inspiration for women who have just made the leap to
become work at home moms.
Time Management Tips
If you don't want to have as many
conflicts between personal and work time, especially as your business
grows, you will need to prioritize and carefully schedule your time.
Otherwise you could find yourself flittering away an hour here or
there going through your Google Reader or surfing Pinterest. Mandi
has struggled with these issues herself, and she has practical
strategies to deal with distractions.
Some of Mandi's tips for time
management include doing your most important tasks first, creating a
detailed schedule for your time, and using tools to prevent you from
surfing the Internet when you should be working.
I also love her tip to procrastinate
productively. If you are putting off doing something, at least find
something else on your to do list to do instead so you are still
being productive. Even seasoned work at home moms will likely
benefit from her time management tips.
Practical Steps for Success
At the end of the day, you are working
at home, so if you have at home distractions, take care of those
first. Mandi calls these annoying distractions "pressure
points" and suggests you take care of them as quickly as
possible.
If you are bothered because the bed is
not made, make the bed first thing in the morning. If you don't like
clutter everywhere, have a 15 minute cleaning blitz. Sometimes small
actions like these that don't take much time can make a huge
difference in how you feel throughout your work day.
Mandi also gives suggestions for
tackling tasks that you dread, finding a laundry and cleaning
routine, and taking steps to declutter so you have less "stuff"
invading your surroundings.
The Cost
This book is now available at Amazon for $4.99.
The Verdict
If you are a work at home mom looking
for the best way to juggle your multiple responsibilities as well as
to find joy in all of your roles as a woman rather than struggling to
blend being a mom and a productive worker, this book is for you.
I have been a work at home mom for two
years now, but as my business has grown, I find it increasingly more
difficult to have enough time for my family and to get my work done.
Mandi has clearly been there and done that, and she has some
excellent strategies, which is why I highly recommend this book.
Melissa, a mom to three little ones (ages 7, 3 and 1) blogs at Mom's Plans where she writes about living a fulfilling life on less and focuses on cutting expenses, budgeting, paying down debt, saving money and once a month cooking.
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