Only do the things that only you can do.

This is the advice I gave myself 20 years ago and also to some very enterprising women I have had the pleasure of meeting in the last couple of days. Let me explain.

I actually enjoy cleaning. When I do it I think I do it well but twenty years ago I realised that there was stuff I should be doing, that only I could do, that I didn’t have time to do because I was cleaning. So, I decided to employ someone else to clean while I wrote books and presented fitness videos.

When I meet young women who are starting their own businesses, working incredibly hard and having great and worthy aspirations, I suggest they stop and think what they want to achieve. Money? Fame? Recognition? Respect? The interesting response, and one that I relate to totally, is that they want to ‘enjoy’ what they are doing and, without hesitation, they say that once the job becomes a chore, they will jack it in.

The problem for women is that we have to juggle home life with work commitments. Someone I met yesterday said that she didn’t believe in child care. She wanted to always be there for her little girl, during the school holidays, after school, at weekends. That’s tough if you’re also going to build a successful business because not all business appointments and commitments fall in to school hours!

One of the most useful decisions I made a few years ago was to employ a freelance driver. It may sound incredibly indulgent but actually, it’s not. I use my own car and employ a professional driver to drive it. Because I use time in the back of the car as office time, I can achieve SO much work while someone else takes the strain of finding the right location, coping with the frustrations of traffic, speed restrictions, direction and safety. Could I go on the train? Probably, but I find carrying all my kit (computer, briefcase etc) on to a train too tiring and I only need to find myself sitting next to someone who wants to talk for England and it’s hard to concentrate on the job in hand. No, working in the back of the car is brilliant for me.

When I spend a day with trainee RC franchisees I ask them what help they would love to have to help them to cope. Someone to do the ironing is almost always top of the list. For around £10 most of us can get the majority of your ironing done for us and it can free us up for a couple of hours that can transform our weekends. Think about it.

There isn’t a working mum in the world who doesn’t feel guilty that she works. We all do. But, with a little thought and planning, we can achieve more than we thought possible and still have a good home life!