Can I start a consulting business around school runs and childcare?

How do you build a business while balancing family responsibilities and childcare? It is the part business advice skips.

What my office days looked like

I had to get up at 5.45am on office days. Get myself ready, get my daughters ready, out of the house at 7.00am, breakfast club by 7.15am, on to the train by 7.32am. I then had to leave again by 5.00pm to be home before the school club shut. I barely saw my children, and I was always one of the first to leave the office.

Since 1 June 2025 I have saved at least 360 hours not commuting.

In September one of my daughters had a fever, and I was there five minutes after the school called. Nobody had to approve it. Now my work fits around my life, not the other way round.

Design the week first

The mistake is to build the business and then try to fit the family round it. Do it the other way.

1. Mark the fixed points of your week first: drop-off, pick-up, the afternoons that belong to your children. Those are not available to clients.
2. Decide your selling hours inside what is left. Calls, workshops and sessions all go there. If you leave it open, you can end up taking calls at seven in the evening.
3. Choose an offer that fits those hours. One-to-one sessions and a weekly group fit around school hours. Anything that needs you on call does not.
4. Hand the admin to something that runs when you are not there: bookings, reminders, call notes, expenses. That is where AI earns its keep for a parent.

The flexibility is real, but it is designed. It does not arrive on its own when you hand in your notice.

For what the work itself looks like, read what a solo advisory practice looks like week to week.

Your next step

My free masterclass runs at lunchtime: Where on earth to start when becoming a solopreneur, and where AI actually helps.