I love this question and I get it quite often. “How do you manage 3 creative businesses plus have time for yourself and your family?”

There is no secret honestly. It has been a learning curve over the years but I have finally made enough adjustments so that I have time for each business as well as time for myself, my family and time to travel.

Here are the things I have done to juggle life along with 3 businesses:

1) Be very protective of my time

I don’t take any meetings unless I absolutely have to. I prefer to work by phone and email to save myself travel time during the day.

I also keep a close eye on my calendar. If a particular week is starting to look busy, I won’t schedule any more commitments or meetings for that week.  I also try not to book any meetings the day before or day after I am traveling. I typically need those days to either get ahead or catch up on work.

2) Cut back on email

I created a general information email  account for each business that my assistant manages. Instead of my personal business email being listed on my business websites, the general email is listed. Any vendor or miscellaneous inquiries that aren’t for events or new clients are responded to by my assistant. I wish I would have done this sooner, even if I had to hire a virtual assistant a few hours per week, it would have been worth it. I also instantly unsubscribe from any email lists that I didn’t purposely join.

3) Have an amazing team and support staff

My studio manager who is also my assistant, has a lot of responsibility. I can count on her to keep the studio running on a day-to-day basis. I have learned to delegate more and more tasks to her which saves me a ton of time each week.

I also have an amazing team of planners at my event planning company. After 3-5 years of working together, they can plan almost any kind of wedding without much help from me. I invested time in the early years with training my staff and it has paid off for all of us.

I have learned to delegate more and more tasks to my bookkeeper. Initially, I only had the funds to hire her for two hours per month. As my businesses have grown, she now spends 10-20 hours per month managing our accounting tasks. I’m thankful for her every day since I dislike accounting.

4) Know when to say no

Being able to say “no” took me quite awhile to learn. When I was building my business, I said “yes” to every opportunity that came along. Now, I am very selective with which clients I take on and the meetings that I commit to.

For me to be successful, I need plenty of down time to relax which means saying “no” a lot more than I ever thought I would be comfortable with.

There are a million other small things I have done to create more time in my day such as limiting my time on social media, having my assistant schedule social media posts in advance, shutting off my computer at the end of the work day, and starting my day off with my must-do list instead of opening email first.

It’s still a learning experience but I am continually creating more time and space in my calendar for life outside of work which makes me a better wife, mom, planner, friend, and entrepreneur.

I was inspired to share this post thanks to these two blogs from Sage Wedding Pros: How We Spend Our Days : Part One and Part Two.

How do you increase productivity and manage your schedule? Share your tips in the comments!