Hey there, my lovelies. Hope you all are doing good. If you’re reading this, chances are higher that you might be a stay-at-home mom with a full-time remote job. Or even you might be wondering to start your own business so that you can work from home.
You’re living the dream! You’ve landed a flexible position where you can work from home or you’ve decided to strike out on your own as a consultant. Now here comes the real challenge. How do you manage your time and balance your career life and family life?
Through clever scheduling and some mom hacks, you have to overcome this challenge.
As a stay-at-home mom and a full-time remote worker, I too had the same question 5 years ago.
This article is all about what I’ve learned throughout the years.
Whether you’re a mom working from home who’s struggling to manage your time and life or you’re a mom hoping to go for a remote job, I’m pretty sure these tips will guide you towards the freedom and flexibility that you get with working from home.
So, let me share these tips with you! Don’t forget to share you thoughts in the comments section!
Tip #1: Separate family and professional lives
Unless you learn to manage both your roles as mom and businesswoman properly, you will never be comfortable doing well in your life. You have to give each your full concentration and dedication as they require. I think the best way to separate mentally from the rest of the house is to set up an office area. I have a separate office room in our home where I keep an office table, chairs, and a cupboard. I don’t keep the door closed usually, but if I have an important business call and I don’t need any interference, I close the door for a few minutes.
Tip #2: Get your baby on a schedule
I know this is going to be the most important step from this whole article. This is truly a controversial topic when it comes to parenting, but literally, I don’t have words to express how valuable a schedule is. Knowing when your baby is going to sleep and when she needs to eat is absolutely helpful in being able to return to work and maintain your peace of mind.
Tip #3: Know yourself and your family
We all know that no time management tip works for everyone. When it comes to time management, planning, and organizing, we all have different styles, strengths, and weaknesses. Some of you may learn or struggle hard to stop procrastinating including me. Some of you may carve out a distraction-free workspace to get anything done.
So, in order to assess whether you have a good, balanced work-at-home personality, identify your strengths and weaknesses. Only then you can start developing your strengths and correcting your weaknesses. Try to implement a set of work-at-home ground rules that factor in your own personality and the ages of your kids.
Tip #4: Wake up early
Usually, I wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning. And I start journaling before my kids wake up. it’s something really necessary for me to get myself into the right mindset for the day.
Believe me, there’s such a peacefulness in the early mornings that you’ll never regret waking up earlier. It feels really great to start the day before everyone else does.
I have even shared my daily routine as a work from home mom in this blog. There I have shared the habits that help me to wake up early.
Tip #5: Create a schedule
Creating a schedule is something that you can do as soon as you wake up. But personally, I create my next day schedule when I’m going to bed at night.
Time management indeed is an essential skill that requires a lot of practice. Scheduling is the key to time management. Line up your day carefully while setting the “office hours”. It’s good if you set your work hours, so both your family and you know when you’ll be working. But with little kids that would be quite impossible.
Tip #6: Make to-do lists
Create a list of tasks to be accomplished within your day.
A more effective practice is to create the list on the day before. Simply create a list of your priorities for the next day before you go to bed every day. There are a few benefits of this. You’ll know what tasks you have to accomplish as soon as you wake up. So it will automatically motivate your mind to start working without wasting a single minute. If you create a to-do list at the end of the day you’ll remember all your pending tasks so that you won’t miss anything.
Tip #7: Set timers
This is a practice I’ve been using for a long time and it’s being highly useful too. This habit helps me to make most of the nap time hours. A nap time is like precious gold for me. And I use the naptime to manage my social media and reply to emails. Both of them can be longer than I actually expect so I set timers. You too can try it. You can set 20 minutes on the clock for task A, 30 minutes for task B, and 15 minutes to task C, and likewise. I’m sure you won’t regret it at all since it’s such a great way to stay focused.
Tip #8: Batch work when you can
You can use a project management app that helps you to be focused on the tasks you need to accomplish. This will automatically increase your productivity.
As a blogger, this is how I batch work my tasks. According to my weekly planner usually on Mondays, I find the topics to write blog posts and list out the objectives of each topic. Then on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I fully concentrate on writing high-quality blog posts. On Thursdays, I create images for my blog posts. Likewise, I’ve divided each and every day to concentrate on one specific task. Maybe this is not your method. But for many, this method works, and I’m sure of it. This is a technique that is really productive.
Tip #9: Multitask appropriately
As a mom, I learned how to multitask. In fact, time management for moms means always multitasking. But first, you must know how to multitask and practice it well. Otherwise, you will end up with half-done projects at the end of the day. Know how to and when to multitask is the key to achieve success in your work and family life.
Tip #10: Use tools effectively
What working from home makes possible are tools such as the Internet, email, computer, and mobile phones. But these tools can also steal our precious time if not used in the correct way. Tracking your time is something that you can do in order to reveal your biggest time wasters. I have personally used this technique and to be honest it has been a huge help for me. By doing so you can get a clear idea on how to organize your work. This will also help you to determine which tools you shall use and which to avoid according to your work and schedule.
Tip #11: Be flexible
If you’re new to this and if you’ve just started out as a work-at-home mom, you’ll soon find out that you have to adjust your expectations, your methods and your techniques as your family grows and babies grow up. What works for a toddler will gradually change when he becomes a preschooler.
In the end, it’s all about flexibility. In fact, it’s what working from home is all about.
What are your best tips for being a working-at-home mom? Share them in the comments section below, let’s talk
