monday already?  march already?  and wouldn’t you know it…after a fairly snow-free winter, march apparently storms in with, of all things, snow!!  not enough to have fun with it (build snowmen, go sledding) but just enough to be pretty yet annoying!

i’m excited to tell you all that i’m now a guest contributor to vianza!!  i’ll be giving advice and information on starting and/or owning an indie shop.  if you’re not familiar with vianza, it’s a social platform & marketplace for indie designers, artists & retailers.  their blog is chock full of great information whether you’re building your business or in the dreaming/aspiring stage. so i’m excited to be a part of it!

you can check out my past 2 articles here:

find your online customers – where are they hanging out?

online promotions that’ll have customers cheering!

and don’t forget to submit your questions to me for this friday’s q&a (see information here) – questions can be on anything from finding your passion to running a business to whatever you have in mind!

happy friday everyone!  i’m really excited to kick off this series because it’s something i’ve been meaning to do for a LoOOonNNng time!!  every week i get questions from aspiring biz owners to people who have been in biz a few years and i end up just wanting to talk biz and help in any way i can (i think we all have a little geek to us – this is my geek out time – talking biz! oh and finances…i know, i’m that weirdo that LOVES balancing her checkbook & budgeting!).

but seriously i’ve been wanting to do a weekly q&a for awhile now.  do you all remember teachers in school always saying – “if one person has that question, then many others do too” (i’m paraphrasing – i think it was better said than that

this week’s question comes from andrea who asked:

when you’re just starting out, how do you maintain work/life balance?

i wish i could say there was a magic bullet answer to this one!  but the truth is that i think whether we have a business or not, the work/life balance is always a challenge.  and no one answer fits all.  (i know, who wants to hear that!!)  but once we realize that there isn’t one perfect answer, then we can move on to finding what DOES work for us.

for me, sometimes it’s as simple as realizing that i’m feeling unmotivated or uncreative.  once that happens, i KNOW that my balance is out of whack and most likely i’m spending too much time at the computer or working.  what really helps is when i set a schedule and stick to it.  my schedule includes time for working out, meditation and hanging out.  am i always able to stick to this schedule?  of course not, it’s life and sometimes things get in the way.  but the more i deviate from including some down time, the less productive i become.  strange, yet oh so true!

i’ve been reading the book “uncertainty” by jonathan fields and he talks about trying to work in 90 minute sessions.  this is more in relation to getting unstuck but i think it applies to balance as well.  we have to remember that we are the most important thing to work on!  our relationships, our health, our happiness…this all feeds what we can do.

now i want to throw it out to you guys – what has worked for you?  do you think work/life balance is just a myth?

to all my fantastic readers…do you have a question that you want included in these weekly q&a’s?  please e-mail me at info@onesydneyroad.com with the subject line q&a, and i’ll get those questions answered!

[images above:  via we heart it]