Lindsey Fish, founder and CEO, Mum's Enterprise — Lindsey Fish, founder and CEO, Mums Enterprise

Raising a family in this day and age isn’t easy when one member of the partnership is working full time – Let’s face it, one salary is seldom enough to provide for everything these days.

This also leaves a huge amount of pressure on the other parent to raise a family while generating some form of income for themselves.

The mum economy, flexible working, and gender equality movement have certainly gathered pace since 2014 and this is no coincidence.

After doing the maths and balancing nursery fees with the income that would be generated from a 9-5 job, some mums or dads would realise that there is little to no point in returning to work.

So instead, they search for a flexible alternative to generating income and for some, this becomes the nudge they’ve always needed to push them to set up a business for themselves.

Setting up a business during maternity leave or just after isn’t easy, because there is no denying that the first few years of a child’s life are never easy anyway.

Throw into the mix the excitement, fear of the unknown and sheer volume of work required to set up a company from scratch and life starts to look somewhat busy.

Lindsey Fish, Founder of Mums Enterprise, shares some of her top tips on how to balance business and family life:

Tip 1 – Keep the channels of communication open

Juggling home and work life can be stressful at the best of times as there are so many things to think of.

Talking and planning with your partner, family or business colleagues can really help to ensure that you all stay on the same page and understand one another.

Tip 2 – Try to work some kind of structure

It’s all very well trying to grab an hour here and there but we are not all invincible, so it’s really important to structure your time in such a way that you have a set number of hours to set up and run your business each day.

Tip 3 – Create a ‘To Do’ list and stick to it

Time is precious so when you manage to sit down and work, it’s really important to stay focused on the essential tasks at hand and not to get distracted by incoming emails and calls.

Set yourself five realistic tasks a day and work to achieve each of these before moving on to the next activities.

Tip 4 – Don’t burn the candles at both ends

It’s really easy to try and cheat time and be a full-time parent by day and a businesswoman by night and this is OK to an extent but it will catch up with you.

Try to allocate time during the day to get tasks done son that when the evening comes, you can at least spend some of it trying to relax.