Overloaded? How to Determine What Type of Help to Hire

By Melissa Batai

WAHMs often have a difficult job juggling childcare and work. As babies grow older and sleep less or your workload increases, you may find it increasingly difficult to get all of your work done. Fortunately, this is a great problem to have because it usually means your business is healthy.

If you're considering bringing on help, try this test to see how much and what type of help you need:

1. Track all of your time for a week or two. Tracking your time is tedious, but doing so can help you identify places where you spend your time but don't bring in income. (Social media updates and e-mail can be notorious time drains.)

2. Identify financially where it's best to outsource. Do you spend 4 hours a week cleaning house? That's time you're not making any money. If you make $50 an hour, why not hire a housekeeper to clean your house for 3 to 4 hours for $75? You're still coming out ahead working 4 more hours at $50 instead of cleaning.

The same can be done with your workload. Do you spend 3 hours a week promoting your business on social media? Why not hire a virtual assistant to do that so you can instead do your most productive job and make more money?

3. Consider all the ways you can outsource. You have many options when it comes to outsourcing--hiring a housekeeper, a babysitter, a virtual assistant.

How would you like to spend your time? If you'd prefer to spend more time with your kids, then make hiring a virtual assistant or housekeeper your priority.

As an entrepreneur, it's best to outsource so that you can spend your limited time doing what you're best at and what makes you the most profit. If your hourly wage is higher than the hourly wage you'd have to pay if you hired someone to relieve some of your work burden, the decision then just becomes what do you feel most comfortable outsourcing?

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.