via Twitter

Restaurants are big business in this country. Most people enjoy at least a couple of meals per week in one, in addition to the fast food restaurants we visit and the high-end restaurants that host our big holiday celebrations and events. According to the  National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry generates an average $1.8 billion on a typical day. And yet, despite all of that , many restaurants fail. Just take a look at Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares for a sampling of the restaurants that don’t make it.

So if you can make a restaurant work, it’s quite an accomplishment. And if you can make it work while raising a family, that an even bigger success.

Joanna Davis is a woman who took her passion for preparing mouth-watering dishes, combined it with her business knowledge, and co-founded the Shrimp Shack Grill with her husband, Max. Located less than half a mile north of I-170 in St. Louis, MO, the Shrimp Shack Grill specializes in all things shrimp and seafood,  incorporating some of your favorite foods: okra, collard greens, yams, and potato fries into the mix. These are fresh meals designed to remind them of their grandmothers’ cooking. Hungry yet?

“I am from a big family and Max and I have a big family,” Davis shares at the Shrimp Shack Grill’s official website. She continues, “But it is the memories around the kitchen or in our restaurant that are my most precious.” It’s these memories that Joanna shares with her customers.

While time management and project juggling is challenging for all entrepreneurs, Joanna’s case is a little special. In addition to tracking and managing a budget and staff, Joanna is also mother to nine children. And besides her restaurant business, she also sells her own line of seasonings called “Jo Jo Seasonings.” Flavors include Garlic Parmesan and Rib Rub.

As Beyoncé prepares for a musical comeback with her newborn baby, Blue Ivy, in tow to and from the studio, the new mother seems to juggle it all well: a high profile career while being both a mother and a wife. While other celebrities like Oprah, have shunned the idea of having kids, saying that her job ultimately became her ‘baby,’ there are others who seem to manage it all: the family and the career. Is this a new notion for the modern day woman? Do to be very successful, does something have to give? Or can women really have it all?

While the average career mom may not have a high profile job like the above mentioned celebs or a nanny to assist with household chores and fill in on ‘baby duty’ when mom and dad want some alone time, all women who are attempting to climb the career ladder, raise children, and keep a relationship spicy all share the same struggles of balance, just on different levels.

The question of women having it all is a timeless debate that has changed over time. Part of the reason the ‘having it all’ theory has changed is because what constitutes ‘having it all’ has subsequently been altered.

In the past, having it all may have meant to have a big house, a man with big pockets, and kids adored by envious neighbors. Mothers were excited to cook dinner and please their men. And while this certainly wasn’t all women, the vast majority (especially before the 70’s) considered this the American Dream.

Now, for many women, that American Dream consists of having their own career. But does having multiple degrees, businesses, or budding careers mean that relationships will suffer? Can a woman truly be a force to be reckoned with in her respective career and still be supermom and wife?

Many women struggle to balance relationships and career, before marriage. So it’s inevitable that the struggle becomes even greater once marriage and children are involved. But even things that are difficult to juggle can still be juggled, right?

Between working, writing, and grad school, I barely have time to date and manage all of my responsibilities. This is also partly because my time management skills are almost nonexistent. But imagine if I added a family to the equation. Juggling it all would require some serious time management skills and a bit of extra help whether through family, friends, or babysitters.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to manage.  But it seems to be all about timing, balance, and compromising.

At some point in time, one thing must be compromised to ensure the success of the other, whether it’s for a day, a month or a year; it’s not realistic to be Betty Crocker every day, work long hours at an office, travel every other week for work, and make sure hubby isn’t sneaking around because of lack of food and affection. As much as we like to consider ourselves as superwomen, there just isn’t that many hours in a day.

Still, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, right? Or is it a matter of having it all, just not all at once?

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getreligion.org

A few years ago, Beyonce told a magazine that churchgoers’ reactions to her celebrity status keep her from attending church. “I think God understands if I miss Sunday service,” she said.

Well, Beyonce may not be one of them, but according to the National Council of Churches, 147.3 million people—or just under half of the American population—attend church.

Personally, I’m a church girl and have been for most of my life. I’m always at church. I volunteer at my church, worked at my church, went to high school at my church, attended a Bible college at my church and even met my husband at my church. However, as I’m reading more of the Bible, aggressively pursuing my career goals, paying closer attention to my financial status, navigating life as a newlywed and generally just re-evaluating several areas of my life, I’ve begun to wonder if incessant church attendance is necessary…or even productive?

I believe that church attendance is vital for education, edification, and fellowship with other believers. Week after week, God moves in churches across America to bring salvation, healing and deliverance. There are people in other countries who risk their lives to have an organized church service.

However, many churches like mine have three or more services a week and expect their members to attend every one. I’m not convinced any successful person spends this much time at church.

chron.com

How could they? There are only so many hours in a week and if we have jobs and families then where does excessive church attendance fit in? It doesn’t. Something has to suffer and because too many erroneously and un-Biblically equate church with Christianity, we find ourselves forsaking all to…attend church.

That’s not what God intended.

When people in the Bible asked Jesus what they must do to be saved, he didn’t answer, “Spend every waking moment at church,” so why, two-thousand years later, has the Way, the Truth, and the Life been watered down to church attendance?

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently reported that “roughly 60 percent of Black women say they attend religious services at least once a week. No group of men or women from any other racial or ethnic background exhibits comparably high levels of religious observance.”

We also know that, statistically, Black women lag behind others in the areas of health and wealth. Are our peers are climbing the ladder of success as we sit in our local sanctuaries? How can we even begin to fulfill the Great Commission and be the “light of the world” if we hide our light under the church pews?  Living in Christian bubbles is wholly ineffective. The expectation that Christians cloister in church every chance we get has largely left us out of the ranks of highly successful people. Is there a way to find a balance between spending time at church and still getting substantial things accomplished in life? I believe so.

Of course, I can think of many less noble ways to whittle away time than spending it at church. People spend an exorbitant amount of time watching Real[ly] [Not Anybody's] Wife of [Pick Your City], enjoying senseless “hobbies” or being engrossed in Facebook’s new Timeline feature. Personally, I’ve spent hours I’ll never get back on Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr or catching up on shows via DVR.

I’m merely suggesting for that we shouldn’t be made to feel as though we are less than heaven-bound because we skip a Wednesday night service in order to go to work, get our house in order or even to spend time with friends and family.

I’m no Beyonce Knowles but, yes,I know God understands if I too, miss a Sunday service.

Follow me on Twitter: @AlissaInPink or check out my blog This Cannot Be My Life 

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(Entrepreneur) — 1. Use your drafts folder — a lot. Here’s an inbox triage system I’ve used every day for more than a decade. Go to your inbox, and open the oldest email there. If you have emails from before today, just start with today’s batch.) While you’re reviewing that individual email ask yourself: “Trash? File? Reply? Forward?” If it’s for trashing or filing, do it now.  If you need to act on it, start a draft by clicking the button to either reply or forward. Then, choose to “Save as draft.” Then move that email out of your inbox. (The draft is waiting for you, over in the drafts folder, remember?) You can file it, trash it or print it, just don’t leave it in the inbox.

Read More…

(Fast Company) — Distractions at work are nothing new. Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) wrote about strategies for dealing with work distractions way back in the 1300s. In his Life of Solitude, Petrarch offers the following advice for the medieval scholar: “Close the doors of your senses in order to achieve solitude in the presence of other people.” Today, you will find many people doing exactly that in coffee shops and other public places.  Yet distractions have gotten worse, much worse, in fact, and technology is largely to blame. As late as the 1960s, the only piece of technology on a worker’s desk was a telephone (and maybe a typewriter). Contrast that with today’s collage of desktop computer, notebook computer, voice over IP (video) phone, smartphone, iPod, iPad, and other devices. Each one of these electronic “servants” vie for the attention of its master with beeping alerts, trendy ringtones, and flashing screens. This army of devices is overloading us with information, and we battle to keep up.

Read More…

Trying to “make it” (or maintain it) can be quite the struggle. You’ve got work deadlines, classes, social functions, family obligations…you may find yourself trying to channel your inner Superwoman just to get through an average week! However, if you aren’t making time to enjoy your life in the meantime-before your grinding pays off or even afterwards-then it isn’t truly worth it. Check out our favorite ways to make sure that we’re living life even as we plot our climb to the top!

(Entrepreneur) — Odessa Hopkins knew she wasn’t spending her time as wisely as she could. The owner of a small Greenbelt, Md., marketing and advertising consulting firm called Another Approach Enterprises, was always juggling projects and keeping busy. But she “would work on a lot of things all day long, but at the end of the day I didn’t really finish anything,” says Hopkins, 52. While client deadlines were met, she says projects were sometimes taking longer than they should because she was juggling so much.

Read More…

Dear Felicia,

How does a small business get and stay organized when it comes to administrative and miscellaneous tasks?

Nubia P.

via Twitter

Dear Nubia,

Administrative and miscellaneous tasks are a necessary part of business, but they sure can be big time wasters too.  If you are able to hire an administrative assistant who is primarily responsible for these tasks, or delegate them to a virtual assistant, then this will save you a lot of time — and make you more money — in the long run.  However, if you have to handle them for yourself until your business grows, then get disciplined about scheduling them as part of your day.

Here are four steps for maximizing your time and remaining organized to handle administrative tasks while running your business.

1.     Complete your critical or “must-do” tasks first: Identify your revenue-generating tasks and put them at the top of your daily to-do list.  Keep your list short at seven items or less.  You can keep a master list of to-do items a mile long, but keep that in a folder or Word file somewhere else.  Don’t use your long list as a daily guide because subconsciously, it is not good to end your day everyday with more things left to do than you have completed.  It is more psychologically rewarding to have a short list that you complete or nearly complete each day.

2.     Schedule everything, including breaks for administrative tasks: Schedule your day with a generous amount of time for revenue-generating tasks because they are priorities.  In between these tasks, or as a short break from them, schedule 15 to 30 minutes for administrative or miscellaneous items, such as answering e-mail or returning calls.  Working in blocks of time like this has really helped me.  I have gotten to the point where I schedule everything, including time for interruptions.  I know this may sound a little rigid, but it takes a good bit of discipline and focus to build a business that pays for itself and pays you well so sometimes we have to upgrade our habits.

3.     Start your day with energy and focus: Every day before I start working I take a few quiet minutes to get centered.  I then check my BlackBerry calendar so I know what is ahead.  I also have my to-do list — written the day before — on my desk waiting to be worked through when I get started in the morning.

4.     Be honest with yourself and eliminate or minimize distractions: I have found that e-mail and telephone calls distract me a lot.  So now, I don’t check e-mail or make phone calls until I have done two or three things on my list.  This way I build momentum and it’s easier for me to get back to work after checking e-mail for 30 minutes or taking a call.  I also now put my BlackBerry on silent and leave it in my purse and out of reach while I am working.  If it is there on my desk, I have the tendency to keep checking it every two minutes.  This is so silly, but it’s what all these gadgets and the Internet have done to us!  Identify your time wasting weaknesses and set yourself up for success by getting rid of the distractions.

Unless you are naturally structured, when you first attempt to manage your time like this it will feel odd and you will stray from it. But eventually if you stick with it, you will form new habits and feel great about how much real work (not busy work) you are getting done and that will compel you to stick with it.

Grace & Peace,

Felicia Joy

Felicia Joy is a nationally recognized entrepreneur who created $50 million in value for the various organizations and companies she served in corporate America before launching her business enterprise.  She is often called on to discuss the ins and outs of entrepreneurial success and has appeared on CNN, FOX and in other national press.  Felicia operates Ms. CEO Inc., a company that helps women entrepreneurs achieve more success, faster — as well as Joy Group International, LLC, a business development and consulting firm. Send her your questions at ask@feliciajoy.biz or www.twitter.com/feliciajoy.

(Entrepreneurs) — Putting things off for another day is one of the things millions of us know how to do well, but it creates anxiety, low-quality work and missed deadlines. Researchers and psychologists have come up with many reasons we procrastinate. Instead of fixating on why (years of therapy could give you an answer), its best to find ways to manage it.

Read More…

(Entrepreneurs) — Putting things off for another day is one of the things millions of us know how to do well, but it creates anxiety, low-quality work and missed deadlines. Researchers and psychologists have come up with many reasons we procrastinate. Instead of fixating on why (years of therapy could give you an answer), its best to find ways to manage it.

Read More…