I hear a lot of feedback from the Home Biz Chicks community that their number-one challenge in starting or growing a successful home-based business is getting past that feeling of complete overwhelm. You know what it's like - when your mind is racing from one thought or idea to the next, when your to-do list gets longer each day and you feel frustrated and angry about your lack of progress. Then, compounding your frustration is that sense of guilt about there being no quality time left to spend time with your family and partner.

It's a common problem that strikes everyone (including me!) at some point in their home-business life, but there are solutions and practical strategies to avoid and deal with it. Here's what I do, when that sick feeling of overwhelm starts to rise:

1. Understand that when you're starting a home business, it will be hard work to begin with, but if you plan well, and set up systems early, things will ease off. Think about an analogy with a plane - it uses 65% of its fuel just to get off the ground, but once it's in the sky and above the clouds, its workload is reduced and flying becomes easier. Think about how you can structure your business so that once you have the products or services in place, it's just a case of increasing the number of people who are exposed to your marketing, rather than having to start from scratch each time you have a new client.

2. When you are starting out, make a list of action steps that will enable you to reach a business goal. Diarise time in your schedule so you work on these action steps every day. Regardless of whatever else happens in your day, make sure you take one action that moves you towards a business goal. It's a sure-fire way of feeling like you're making progress - because you will be!

3. Don't sweat the small stuff - once you know the action steps you need to take to achieve your goals, you can happily let go of the smaller things that keep you busy.

4. Find help. No successful business woman can do it all on her own. This is a very important lesson to learn. Rather than fretting about your entire workload, see if you can outsource small components that you don't enjoy or feel stressed about. If you don't think you can afford to outsource, find a work experience helper or someone to come in and play with the children for a few hours each week.

5. Avoid responding to emails all day. The number one activity that will take you off-task and destroy your focus is email. Set aside an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon to deal with emails - and stick to it! You can set an auto response alerting people that you'll get back to them during those two periods each day and provide them with a phone number to call in the case of an emergency. Your colleagues and clients will soon learn your new working routine and you'll be surprised by how few people will feel the need to phone you.

6. Find a community of other women who can provide advice and support on the issues you're dealing with in business. This might be a networking group you meet with regularly, or an online discussion forum like the one you'll find at http://www.homebizchicks.com. You're likely to find other women who've been through the same thing who can offer solutions and who can help give you some perspective on your problem.

7. If you're still finding you're feeling stressed, recognise the feeling and remove yourself from the situation. If you're heart is fluttering, you're feeling panicky, can't sleep or feel like you want to give it all up, realise you're in a state of overwhelm and you need to stop what you're doing and give yourself a break, even if it's only for a few minutes. Go for a walk around the block, have a cup of tea, walk away and breathe.

© 2009 Home Biz Chicks