Are you a small business owner with multiple responsibilities? Almost every entrepreneur I have met since starting my own freelance business has one or more competing priorities, including:

• Growing a small business
• Continuing education
• Full time day job
• Small children
• Health issues
• Elder care

If you are already feeling stretched thin between your personal and business goals, you are not alone. What will happen if you have to deal with an unexpected event?

Small Business Continuity Planning

Big corporations and government agencies have put together what are essentially uber to-do lists that they can pull out in the event of an emergency or disaster that disrupts their daily workflow. Whether you call it Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, or a Business Resumption Plan, entrepreneurs can take a page from the big business playbook to manage our business and personal lives when things get hectic.

Disruptive events don’t have to be huge disasters like hurricanes or a critical illness. Anything that would take your full attention and make you change your priorities can be disruptive, even good things like a product launch, a new baby or six bushels of peaches that need to be made into jam.

The Department of Homeland Security has a Business Continuity Plan outline that we can use to create a planning framework for micro-businesses like yours and mine.

Impact Analysis

If you are the chief cook and bottle washer for your home and business, you do not need a fancy questionnaire to figure out all the important tasks that you do on a regular basis. Think back over the last week or two, and refer to your planner for the last six months.

Make a list of the vital things that have to be done. Include everything, even if it seems obvious, for both your home and business. Leave lots of space for notes after each space on your list.

Grocery shopping, meal preparation, cleaning, pet care, blog posts, product packaging and shipping, laundry … if it is a task that you perform regularly for your home or business, add it to the list.

Wow, you are a busy person!

Recovery Strategies

For each of the tasks on your analysis list, start making notes of ways that job can be handled, even if you aren’t able to do it the way you normally do. Can it be skipped for a while? What is the bare minimum?

For example, my normal housecleaning schedule includes deep cleaning each area of my home on a regular basis. When I have to spend several days processing and canning garden produce, any cleaning outside of the kitchen just doesn’t get done that week, much less deep cleaning.

But when I spent three months taking courses, building my website and preparing to launch my blog while working a full time job, I did a weekly bare minimum. In other words, the bathrooms were cleaned enough to be sanitary, but I certainly didn’t scrub tile grout with a toothbrush!

Plan Development

Now that you have an idea of the most essential tasks that have to be done and how often, flesh out how you would go about getting those things done if the situation is not “normal”.

Think about backups and work-arounds.

Do you send a regular newsletter or update to your mail list? What if your computer crashes and burns? Is your mail list stored somewhere besides your computer hard drive, like the cloud? Can you log into your blog site or mail scheduling application from another computer?

You can develop backups and work-arounds for personal tasks as well.

Meal planning for a day or two could be delivery, so your backup can be a folder of menus from the nearest Chines restaurant and pizza parlor.

The work-around for longer disruptions can be a week-long menu for very simple and easy meals and a matching grocery list. Don’t forget the deli when making that meal plan and grocery list. Rotisserie chicken and cold cuts are user friendly, as are microwavable entrees and sides. If you make more than one weekly menu and list, you can alternate!

Testing and Exercises

This is where you try out your carefully thought-out backup plans and work-arounds to make sure they work!

Borrow a friend’s computer or go the library to make sure you can get to your online business essentials.

Try asking your spouse to validate your business resumption plan by preparing meals for a week. Hand over your menu and grocery list. Revise the plan as needed… you may get surprising feedback!

This is your opportunity to revise your plan and discover things you may have missed. Revisit your plans at least annually and always before any anticipated events that will impact your home and business.

Conclusion

There is no wrong way to prepare your Business Continuity Plan. You most likely will not have a full blown written alternative in place for every aspect of your home and business, but by making your Impact Analysis list, the most urgent things to plan for now will pop out at you.

What are the most critical tasks you need to cover with a Plan B? Are there tasks that are less important but really easy to work-around?

Do what you can now, and consider calendaring time to work on a back-up plan for the rest.

How do you handle disruptions to your home and business? Would you like to see more information on business continuity planning for entrepreneurs? Please share your comments and questions below!