10 Ways Moms Can Balance Work and Family
Working moms are amazing jugglers who fulfill many roles. Balance--it's a feeling we all hope to achieve but yet it always seems to escape us. Here are some tips how how to handle being a work at home mom.
Get--and stay--organized. Your work time is precious and not as dependable as it would be if you worked in a traditional workplace. You can't afford to waste time looking for files, sorting through junk mail or even finding a pen. Keep everything clean and organized from the start. It will save you a lot of time (which you already do not have with your child)
Have a plan: Ideally, you should keep both personal and work appointments on the same calendar so you don't overbook or double up. Of course, you'll have to be flexible as your child-care provider will inevitably cancel, your kids will get sick and your spouse may occasionally need to work late.
Home office: Get covers for your computer and child-safe drawers on your filing cabinet, and keep your paperwork out of reach if you don't want your reports and invoices covered in crayon or even weird emails sent to your clients or boss. Put a space near you where you child can play while you work so he/she will not disrupt you too much.....And finally leave your cell phone out of reach as kids nowadays are obsessed with them! So you do not hear your supervisor one day trying to have a conversation with your 16 months old....
Think nap to nap, not 9 to 5: Break out of the 9-to-5 office hours' tradition. Your hours as a mompreneur might start before your family wakes up, continue during nap times and go on into the wee hours of the night. Prioritize appointments that need to be accomplished in person during the traditional day time hours. But understand that e-mail, filing, reading, and a lot of your other office tasks can be done at any hour of the day or night.
Schedule some mommy time out: Mom is a 24/7 job and every mom knows how stressful it can be when you try to juggle everything at once. Try to have some time off where you can reboot, reset and start fresh, it is an extra perk and not a source of distress. Hard to find but necessary!
Stay focused, and don't get sidetracked. One of the hardest things for work-at-home moms is getting sidetracked by children, laundry, dishes.well, you name it. Make a list each month of what you intend to get done. Then break the list down week by week, then day by day. If you stay focused, you can stay committed to getting things done.
Take care of you. How can you work out? Socialize? watch a movie? Read work email? attend all the meetings?.... Realize now that there will never be enough time in the day to get everything done. Your in-box will still be full when you die, so learn to accept that fact now. It may seem like a cliché, but in this case, it's the truth: You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of your family, your business and your home.
Always remember ....mark anything in your calendar! You all have heard of the "mommy brain" right?
Follow the same consistent routine each day so your children know what to expect and you as well.
Cut yourself some slack. Remind yourself often that you don't have to be an amazing parent and an ideal professional every day. Some days you will ace the work presentation, but feed your kid Cheetos for a snack. Other days you'll teach your child to tie his shoes, but turn in a grant proposal with a typo in the first paragraph.
At the end of the day, just be proud of yourself and what you can accomplish!
Great post! It can definitely be hard to work from home without being a mom. Adding that, just adds another dimension entirely.
I can definitely see the importance of number 4. That one is so true. I also see the importance of number 2. Double-booking is the worse.
I would add the importance of exercise and eating healthy for anybody, but especially mom's who work from home. It's important to keep your health up.