About five months ago, I shared with you how I was offered to work for food…literally. In exchange for seven blog posts for a brand (in one week), I was offered $200 worth of their food products. Promoting a brand for free – on that scale – was not something I could agree to do.

In those five months, I’ve seen many more paid campaigns and sponsored content become available – both to me and blogging friends. We’ve seen more brand ambassador campaigns that value the work required and partner with a blogger over the course of a month or more in a variety of ways, including sponsored posts, advertising, and hosting twitter parties.

Progress. Yet, with all that progress and change towards more respect for bloggers’ work, there are some campaigns out there still being pitched to bloggers that take advantage. Just last week, I received an offer to be part of a community that will be relaunching soon and is geared for moms. Without naming names again, the site is a fairly new community backed by a high-profile TV personality and network. The idea being pitched to me was as follows:

• We want to build a community and educate moms on money matters.
• We’re looking for a group of 15 moms who will be highlighted on the site.
• Requirement from each of the 15 moms: write 3-4 articles per month (250-300 words each) on micro-site and moderate comments on each post
• Benefits for each of the 15 moms:
  • profile with bio
  • 2 sentence by-line on each article
  • site will be promoted on TV show of said personality and on sponsor’s site

As soon as the person pitching me asked, “So, what do you think? Are you interested?” I answered with “So, it’s not a compensated project?” I could not wrap my head around the fact that they wanted me to create content for their site on a weekly basis, with no compensation. What’s more, these 15 moms were really being brought on to build a community that thus far had not succeeded with the TV personality alone. They needed the help of these 15 moms to bring a community to the site. The allure of my bio being on this high-profile TV personality’s site and the promise of the site being promoted on the TV show was somehow supposed to be enough compensation.

What surprised me even more was that I was told they already had the majority of the 15 moms on board and were in the process of finalizing the team, so they need my answer ASAP. Really? There was already a set of 10+ moms out there that had agreed to this? Why?

Ladies, why are you agreeing to work for free? Writing 3-4 articles per month takes time. It may only take you an hour per article, but that’s still time taken away from your already-busy lives. Plus, you are contributing to the success of the overall site, which has sponsors and advertisements – all money that you’re never going to see, but instead is going into the pocket of an already high-profile TV personality. Does that seem fair?

Why is it that they could not budget out a specific amount to pay the 15 moms that will be building the community for them? And if the budget did not allow for fair pay for 15 moms, then perhaps the amount of moms brought onto the team could have been less in order to meet the budget constraints. I know of blogs/communities owned by fellow moms and bloggers that pay their contributors. How is it that a site backed by a TV personality and network could not afford to do so?

On the other hand, perhaps the community owners were ill-advised. Maybe it was never suggested to them that they should pay for such work and were going along with what the social media consultant was proposing. It could very well be that this particular consultant was advising them to gather a group of moms to write free content for them in exchange for the exposure. And why wouldn’t they think it to be fine? After all, there is a group of 15 moms out there that did agree to do just that!

And, so the cycle continues. If bloggers continue to work for free, then consultants, brands, and companies, will continue to think that it’s the way to conduct business.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts. How would you have handled such a pitch had it been offered to you? Why do you think that bloggers continue to accept non-compensated projects and work for free?

Last week, I unplugged four out of the five weeknights. After 4:30/5 pm, I was off the computer and remained off. One night I was forced to unplug, but that’s another story you can read about on 40weeks Plus. However, what I realized last week was how great unplugging can be. I still think I got lots done – work-wise anyway, not in the home – but, I don’t feel overly spent.

Something else I found myself doing was connecting with my husband in small ways. Nothing major – but, I would catch myself staring at him, admiring the hard work he does to be a good father and husband. I found myself actually missing him and yearning to be near him. It brought back memories of those intense, passionate, and highly emotional days when we were only sixteen and learning to love each other.

Wonderful, isn’t it?

My unplugging continued through the long holiday weekend. I don’t think I opened the laptop more than once over the three day weekend, rarely checked in on email on my phone, and only tweeted once or twice over the weekend. While it wasn’t 100% unplugged, anyone who knows about working from home, especially in social media, knows it really was unplugging compared to a normal day.

And, not surprisingly, my world is not turned upside down. Sure, I have a few more emails to answer than I did on Friday afternoon, but nothing urgent. Yes, I could have gotten ahead on blog writing for this week, but all will not be lost. Instead, I have a weekend full of family time to show for it and many laughs that were shared. If only the house had cleaned itself while we were having fun this weekend…

Very timely, as I was going through my google reader account yesterday, these two posts were there waiting for me to read:

• The Importance of Soul Work for Bloggers and Businesswomen
• Productivity & Quality Down Time: They Go Hand in Hand

How did you spend your holiday weekend? Did you celebrate Labor Day as I did by taking a day off?

Ever have one of those days when you just want to push the “delete all” button – in your inbox and life in general? I’m having one of those…weeks. I not only want to clear my inbox and start all over, but I wish I could do the same with my house and other aspects of my daily life.

I know many of you strive to manage it all and have some type of work-life balance, much like me. So, in an effort to help each other out, I’m going to lay it all out and share my current struggles. Perhaps in doing so, I can get rid of the mental clutter and move on to actually setting a plan of action to get things done. Or, at the very least, it will provide an outlet for venting.

Current challenges I’m struggling with:

• 160 unread emails: plus a bunch more marked unread and starred for action
• Messy house: every room in our house needs help
• An ever-growing to-do list: I have several projects I’m working on outside of managing this blog and my pregnancy blog. Each project has a to-do list that seems to add 2 items for every 1 I cross off.
• Cooking: Last night was the first time in a while – maybe a month – that we had an actual real meal. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and dinner menu planning fell off the radar.
• Physical issues: Of course, due to the pregnancy, my energy and stamina are not what they should be. I’ve been able to keep up quite well, considering, as was pointed out by several friends who’ve seen me at recent events, but it’s still not what it could be.

So, what do I plan to do about it? I’m not exactly sure yet. I hope to stabilize one or two projects, so they can be more manageable. I may just hit delete on quite a few emails in order to get my inbox to a workable status. (Maybe. I’ll admit, it’s a little scary to think about doing that.) And, perhaps I can take advantage of upcoming weekends that are relatively free of commitments to dedicate time to the house and put a dinner menu back in effect.

Do you have current challenges you’re facing? Want to share with the rest of us in an effort to help each other with ideas for getting back on track?

When it comes to work-life balance, we try many tools to help us balance our time. From planning meals and chore schedules, to sticking to a social media routine and creating a daily work-flow schedule, we often focus on the planning tools.

But, what about other resources?

I’ve often said to many, that one of the biggest maintaining balance “tools” I have is my husband. And, I don’t mean I use him to delegate tasks, either. More so, I mean that he offers something that all of the planning and productivity tools can’t. Support.

Yes, he offers support by being an equal parent and partner. Of course, he shares the household and parenting responsibilities. This, in and of itself, is a great help in maintaining balance in our lives. However, on a personal level, he offers support…to me, as his wife.

He supports my social media consulting business, my blogging, my goals, and my aspirations. Without that support, it would be much more difficult to accomplish what I do on a daily basis. And, I still have so much more to accomplish.

Imagine, though, if he did not support me. I would go through a daily battle against my parenting duties, my household duties, and my work…and have an added layer of stress because the person with whom I share my life does not support aspects of it.

I can’t even imagine.

So, I’m grateful that he does provide support – both tangible and emotional. I often joke with him that he is my business adviser. In so many ways…he really is.

Who helps you with that type of support?

Guest post: Sandy Salle is a native of Zimbabwe and was born and raised in Southern Africa. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Hills of Africa travel and is passionate about using her first-hand knowledge of Africa to create the trip of a lifetime for her clients. Currently based state-side in North Carolina, she resides with her husband and two small children. Sandy travels home to Africa several times a year and believes that the next best thing to living in Africa is sharing it with others.

Like most work-at-home mothers, I wage a daily battle against the clock to get the kids dressed, emails sent, homework completed, proposals drafted, calls returned, and dinner cooked all within an impossible twenty-four hours.

Struggling to do it all, I began multitasking, but I found that, when I did everything at once, nothing was done well. This, in turn, led to guilt: I got to the soccer game late, I didn’t have time to distribute the invoices, and I was on conference calls the entire time my daughter and I were making cookies for her class. Wasn’t the whole reason I left the office to work at home so that I could spend more time with my kids? Yet, here we were together, and I was so distracted with everything that still had to be done, that I wasn’t present.

As the CEO of Hills of Africa travel, a premier provider of personalized, luxury safari vacations, I have big responsibilities at work. Clients depend on me to plan once-in-a-lifetime safari trips for them, and it’s hard to do that when I am scrambling to clean up the house during the few quiet hours my kids are at school. On the other hand, I don’t want to sacrifice time with my kids. They are only young once, and this time with them is precious. I want them to be experiencing their childhood with me instead of a nanny.

Exhausted, guilt ridden, and overwhelmed, I had to make a change. Here’s what I did . . .

Stopped Multitasking

My first step was to create a structured work schedule around the time my kids are at school, 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. During this time, 100% of my energies are focused on Hills of Africa—no more scheduling play dates or baking during conference calls. No matter where I am in my work at 3:30, I close up shop and refocus all my attention on my kids.

Eliminated Distractions

The old me would sit in front of the computer first thing in the morning and look through a few emails before jumping up to brew a pot of coffee or download a few songs to listen to while I worked. Each of these small tasks took time and broke my concentration. Now, before I even sit down at my desk, I have cup of coffee in hand, my favorite classical play-list on, and my personal phone line set to go straight to voice-mail, so that I can sit down for several hours of uninterrupted work. It’s amazing how much more I began to accomplish when I wasn’t jumping up to switch the laundry every couple of hours!

Became Present

Just being physically there with my kids was not enough. I had to be mentally and emotionally present for our time together to be meaningful. Now, when I’m with my family, I’m not just there, I’m present, listening, and interacting. I mentally free myself from distracting work obligations when I’m with the kids. At the end of the day, my kids crave my attention more than my home-cooked meal, and there’s no shame in occasionally ordering a pizza if it means that we get to eat and engage in conversation together as a family.

Let It Go

If that client call has yet to be made and those pots and pans still need to be washed when the kids arrive home, I forget about it. It can get done the next day. I’ve learned that supermom is an impossible notion, and I can’t do everything by myself. I now have my groceries delivered by Peapod and outside assistance with housekeeping. Anything that allows me to focus my work time completely on my job and my family time completely on my kids is a worthwhile expense.

A long time ago there was a commercial for a pregnancy test on TV that showed a woman standing up and thinking, “I can’t concentrate. Could I be pregnant?” For years, my husband and I laughed at the commercial because we could not make the connection as to what one had to do with the other. Why would she think she was pregnant just because she couldn’t concentrate? The idea seemed absolutely ludicrous to us.

Now that I’m pregnant with our second child, I find that I am the woman from that commercial. And, I’m eating my words – or laughter, in this case. I totally get it now. I’m unable to concentrate and am having a somewhat hard time adjusting and maintaining my work-life balance.

More specifically, I’m finding it a bit difficult to deal with the pregnancy symptoms  – the various aches, and especially the lack of energy – plus entertain and play with my baby girl. I’m getting tired of saying, “Mommy’s not feeling good” and I know she must be tired of hearing it. I can only do so many couch-based activities with her before she requires more stimulation. I’ve tried reading together, watching movies, and playing board games, to name a few things. I get up and moving with her when I can, but it’s not long before, “Mommy has to sit down and take a break.”

I know she’s an understanding girl and for the most part moves on to do another activity. Often times my husband will take over and do something with her until I can keep playing. But, the mommy guilt is coming on full-force these days and I can feel she’s getting frustrated. I’m getting frustrated. It’s even causing tension between us and I find these days we are often snapping at each other; the hormones aren’t helping with my patience either.

Of course, other aspects of our home life are affected, such as keeping up with the household. Luckily, I have a great husband who is doing his part to keep up with things around the house. But, that is not as serious an issue in my mind as the connection with my daughter. That is something he cannot help with.

So, today I want to hear from all of you who already have two, three, and especially those of you who have four or more kids. I want to know how you managed your pregnancies while also working, managing a household, and caring for and entertaining your kids. Hopefully I’m not the only one out there who’s had this issue when pregnant the second time around and you’ll be able to provide some input.

How did you deal with the pregnancy symptoms and maintain a sense of work-life balance?

Since I started working from home, I’ve had to deal with a few comments regarding my new work life. Comments such as:

“Well…she’s not working right now.”

“How much work do you have to do every day?”

“How’s the job search going?”

Different scenarios and conversations caused the comments to be said to me or about me; some were not said in my presence. But, the fact is that while many friends and family have been supportive of my decision to pursue freelance and consulting instead of the standard 9-5 job, there are others who don’t quite understand it. They think I’m looking for a replacement traditional job. They wonder what I do each day. They don’t always understand why I say that yes, in fact, I am quite busy – even at home.

I’ve dealt with the comments and explained that no, I’m not looking to go back to working outside the home. And, yes, I do quite a bit each day, because building a business and doing freelance work, is in fact, work. I understand that it will take some time for everyone to become accustomed to my new work at home status, so it doesn’t bother me. Really…part of me is still getting used to it myself.

As I was thinking about this more, I decided I’d open up the topic for a round-table-type discussion. I want to open it up to you and hear how you have dealt with such comments.

Do you have friends and family that don’t quite get it? Share with us in the comments about your experiences.

What a hectic week so far. Work is super busy. Of course, the home life is always hectic.

I find that more often than not, I have an inner battle going on. Part of me knows that I can’t possibly keep up with everything – home, work, husband, daughter, myself, parents, etc.

Yet, the other half, for whatever unknown ridiculous reason, has it in her head that she should be able to keep up with everything. Not just should, but MUST.

It’s insane.

I realized the other day that this is probably due to years of brainwashing from my mother. And, when I say brainwashing, I mean that in the nicest way possible. Obviously, she did not set out to corrupt my mind. But, through example, it happened.

You see, my mother was a stay at home mom – way before that was even a term; in fact, I believe the term at the time was “housewife.”

Since she stayed home with us until I was about 12 or so, I watched her keep the house in an impeccable state of cleanliness. She had no clutter, no baskets of laundry just waiting to be folded, no dust, and always had dinner on the table when my father came home from work.

Even when she did start working, she still managed to come home from work, and get right to the kitchen. Maybe it had something to do with our Puerto Rican culture. But, whatever it was, it still amazes me how she did it.

I struggle on a daily basis to be able to just put a quick dinner together. To spend some time with my baby girl after a long day at work. Don’t even mention trying to squeeze in some time for the husband.

I think (well actually, it was brought to my attention by the husband recently) that because I grew up seeing her manage so well, I now have these extremely high (and false) expectations of myself. The fact that she often talked with me about having to be a “good wife,” probably added on to it as well. Let me give you an example of something I grew up hearing. Verbatim, my mom used to say, “You have to learn how to cook and clean, because when you get older and get married, you’ll need to take care of your house, husband, and children.”

Though I’m extremely grateful that my mother taught me how to cook and properly clean, hearing this growing up and seeing her manage the “super mom” role well, has resulted in me trying to achieve the same. It’s actually quite frustrating.

How do you manage to keep up? Do you find you have false expectations for yourself?

Disclosure: In conjunction with hosting this giveaway, I will receive two months of personal assistant service from TaskUs.com and a 2-night stay at Hyatt Place.

What does every busy working parent need? Besides more sleep, of course – that’s not something I can help you with.

Take another guess. Go ahead….give up? Oh ok.

Personal assistant. Am I right?

I know there’s been many times I’ve said, “If only I had a personal assistant to…” – you fill in the blank. From keeping up with work, the house, finances, our families, and the many many responsibilities we have every day, maintaining your sanity can be hard at times. We work hard to achieve work-life balance in our lives and we need every little bit of help we can get. In fact, a recent national study conducted by Hyatt Place found that the number of Americans struggling with work-life balance has nearly doubled to 71% since 2006.

It seems that one of the reasons we’re having a harder time finding our balance is that we’re no longer splitting up our various roles. The average 2010 American is instead multitasking all day, every day. Some interesting stats from the study:

• 83% of Americans said they often take care of work matters from home
• 59% stated that they often handle personal matters at work
• 62% of respondents said they are constantly multitasking
• On average, someone working from home is doing five tasks simultaneously

Sound familiar?

To help with your busy multitasking life, Hyatt Place is currently giving away 2 months of virtual personal assistant service to 20 people. The service will be provided by TaskUs.com and you can enter through April 9.

But, you can enter for an even better giveaway right here. In addition to the 2 months of virtual assistance, you can also win a 2-night stay at a Hyatt Place hotel of your choice. Oh, and, two of you will win!

Giveaway

Two readers will win a 2-night Hyatt Place hotel stay and 2 months virtual personal assistant service from TaskUs.com

How to Enter

If you’d like to enter this contest for a 2-night stay/2 months service package, simply leave a comment below and tell us why you need a personal assistant.

For extra entries:

1. Tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.
2. Become a fan of ModernMami.com on Facebook and leave a comment on this post with your Facebook name.
3. Subscribe to this blog via email and leave a comment with the email you used to subscribe. (You can use the email field to do this instead of putting your email in the comment if you prefer.)
4. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
5. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing with your readers why you need a personal assistant and make sure to link back to this contest page in your post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Wednesday, April 7 at 11:59 pm EST. Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winners will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.

Additional Contest Information

• There are no blackout dates for the Hyatt Place hotel stay.
• The TaskUs.com personal assistant service hours must be used by August.
• Official rules for the nationwide Hyatt Place sweepstakes can be found on the contest website.

Image from Anne Helmond on Flickr

Every once in a while someone will make a comment about how they “see me everywhere” online. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plurk, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Friendfeed, and various Ning communities. There’s actually more places to find me, but those are the most commonly known ones. Naturally, I’m also asked how I can keep up with multiple social media accounts. Typical questions include:

• Do you log on to all the different sites to update them?
• How often do you update your status/account?
• Are you always on your computer?

I’d like to say I’m just that talented, but the reality is that there are tools out there that help me keep up and make it “seem” like I’m everywhere. Some are web-based, and others are self-created, but all help me stay on top of my social media presence. I’m going to give you three simple ideas for helping you be more present in your social media efforts without going crazy.

3 Tips To Help You Manage Your Social Media Presence

1. Use Online Tools

Using tools like Ping.fm can help you update multiple social media accounts with one step. You create one account on Ping.fm, link it to all your other accounts, and update your status for all of them from one place. I use this to update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plurk, BrightKite, Identi.ca, and a few other sites all by sending one message. The even better part is that you can link your Ping.fm account to your cell phone, Skype, AIM, and other instant messaging platforms to update your status on the go. That is, you don’t have to go to the Ping.fm site to update all of your accounts – you can do it by simply sending a text from your phone or an instant message.

Something else I often do is pre-schedule updates using sites like SocialOomph, ObjectiveMarketer, or HootSuite. With these sites, you can create a message and publish it at a later time. Some even allow you to set the message on a repeat schedule, if it’s something you want to be seen at different times of the day or for multiple days at a time. This is great because it means you can go to work all day, run some errands, spend some time with the family, or have some fun and your social media presence doesn’t suffer.

Image from Aaron Coyle on Flickr

2. Schedule Your Social Media Time

This is one of those self-created tools that has helped me. I try to have set times in my day that I dedicate to managing my social media accounts. I use those times to update my status, respond to comments/replies I received, and manage requests (i.e., followers, friend requests, group/page suggestions). This works better for me than constantly having the windows open on my computer. I can continue to work on other things and know that I won’t be tempted to keep clicking over to check for the latest comment. Taking breaks throughout the day from social media doesn’t greatly affect your presence. People know that you have a life that just may take you away from your computer. It’s ok to have chunks of the day where you’re more interactive than others.

For me, what seems to work the best is to check in on social media about three times throughout the day – on average. Some days I only check in once or twice, but generally speaking, I log on in the morning, mid-day, and evening. I find that this keeps me up to date, present, and coincides with the majority of people’s schedules. There are those who work early in the morning before the kids are up or before heading out to their “day job.” There are also those that take a lunch break and those that work after the kids go to sleep. By checking in on my social media accounts during each set period, I can interact with a variety of people and those in different time zones from me.

I don’t spend a large chunk of time during any of those three periods, either. I log on to each site, respond or manage requests, and move on to the next. Unless something extremely interesting caught my eye or required me to spend more time managing the situation, I typically complete my social media rounds within 30 minutes, if that.

Image from Volker on Mobile

3. Use a Smart Phone

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how I use a smart phone to increase productivity. I included ideas for managing home tasks and personal calendars, as well as blogging and social media tasks. Like I mentioned in that post, it helps to fill in some gaps throughout the day where you may find yourself with some time, but you’re not near a computer. You can update your status – use that text feature from Ping.fm – or check in on a few comments you may have received. Either way, you can easily be present while on the go.

I know you’ll find these tools to be useful and will eventually find the right combination that works for you. If you’re already familiar with these tools, you know what a great help they can be for managing your social media presence. What do you find works for you? Let’s hear your tips in the comments below.