Patricia Talavera is one half of the tech genius duo behind SYT Biz, a WordPress website design company. Patricia helps other women entrepreneurs play in their zone of genius by them allowing us to play in hers: web design. She helps them get out there in a really BIG way online so they finally have the time to do the type of work that they love.
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Working Mom Interview Q & A
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1. Do you stay at home, work at home, or work-outside the home?
I work from home.
2. How many kids do you have?
One.
3. What’s your go-to dinner during the week? Do you care to share a recipe?
Turkey burgers. The ones I buy are already seasoned and don’t have to be defrosted beforehand so it’s easy to make at the last minute.
4. What are your best tips for staying sane?
Write it down. When I start to get overwhelmed, I do a brain dump. It helps to have everything written down because I can see what’s really pressing and what I can let go of. Even just getting it on paper helps to calm my mind because I don’t feel like I have to remember everything anymore.
5. What are your favorite tools for time/household management?
Evernote is a great place to keep all sorts of information. I use it to keep all my ideas for my business, and also for personal stuff like tracking vendors for my vow renewal next year. It saves me a lot of time to keep it in one place rather than to have to find the information over and over. Trello is great too, I use it for tracking projects but it can easily be used for personal to-do’s as well. You can access it online and on mobile so you can use it anytime.
6. Do you have pets? If so, what kind?
No pets, I’m pretty allergic.
7. What are your hobbies?
I read, although not as much as I used to. I also like creating things that I’ve seen on Pinterest, although it never quite turns out like the pictures.
8. What’s on your bucket list?
I want to take my daughter to the Philippines to meet the rest of my family. I haven’t been back home in over 15 years, and she was born here in the U.S. So it would be nice to take a trip as a family.
9. If you work, what do you do? How did you decide?
I run a web design company with my twin sister. When I graduated from college, I took a corporate job. I ended up leaving a year later because I didn’t want to burn out at the age of 23. I decided to go into business with my twin sister because she was having trouble finding a job that could work around her husband’s schedule (he was active duty army). We started with web design, changed directions a few times, and ended back up at web design a couple of years ago. It’s the thing we could do all day if we weren’t getting paid, so it just made sense to make it the focus of our business.
10. If you work, what’s the most rewarding part about it?
Being able to help other mom business owners. One of our clients became completely self employed after her work with us; knowing that I can make that kind of difference means a lot.
11. If you could tell your younger self something, what would it be?
It really does get better. It sounds like such a cliche, but when you’re in the middle of something it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. So if I could tell my younger self anything, it would be a reminder that this isn’t it, and it will definitely get better.
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