10 Tips For Working At Home and Balancing Life
Have you ever considered Working From Home full-time? Here are the top 10 Tips For Working At Home and Balancing Life that I have mastered over the past decade of working from home and raising my children at the same time.
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I left the corporate world of finance after my special needs son was born because I needed to be home to devote attention to him. I also needed to take him to his numerous therapies for a couple of years and I knew I would never be able to balance a full-time job and the special attention he would need, so I decided to quit my job. After my third child was born I was ready to go back to work, but I also wanted to remain at home and be with my children. Everyone has different experiences and opinions about working from home that they bring to the table to show how best to balance this Working From Home and Balancing Life as a mom, wife, and employee.
I have worked diligently to balance daily schedules and set routines for myself and my children in order for our schedules to mesh. I learned over the years to set specific boundaries in place and to never cross the boundaries. I do this to keep a great balance between my family life and my work life. Although my current schedule is far from perfect, here are my Top 10 Tips for Working from Home for moms, bloggers, and entrepreneurs alike.
Working from home life can seem like a dream, but without setting limits for yourself and your children, a home schedule is not anywhere close to a dream job. So, how do you balance life working from home? How do daily routines and schedules work with a work schedule? Do you hire outside help? How to balance it all?
10 Tips for Working From Home
1) Wake-up Early Every Single Day
I can’t stress this enough. Everyone has deadlines that are always there. Just go to bed, set your alarm and get up early in the morning. Do not try to pull an all-nighter to meet your deadlines. Go to sleep, get up early and start refreshed.
2) Get Dressed Everyday
Along with getting up early is my suggestion to get dressed. It is very easy to just walk into the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee and head to your computer. But just don’t. This is probably my number one tip when anyone asks me how to begin. Get up and get dressed every morning. You don’t have to be rocking a suit and high heels, but wearing anything other than yoga pants or the clothes you slept in makes you feel ready to always jumpstart your day!
Working from home is not the easiest path, but when you have a positive mindset and follow specific strategies, working from home is simple. Waking up early and getting dressed as if you were actually leaving the house to go to work is the biggest tip I can offer. Here’s a bonus tip: I even put on a little makeup for myself because when I am ‘made-up’, I actually am more productive!
3) Stick to Schedules & Calendars
I keep a family calendar in my kitchen and every member of the family has to update it with the time there is an appointment or activity. From the monthly family calendar, I back-fill my personal work-at-home schedule. I also take full advantage of working when my children are at activities. Like most moms, we are waiting around a lot of the time. I always have my laptop with me and take advantage of those 1-hour time slots. A schedule will keep you organized. Stick to your schedule for success!
Here is another bonus tip: Keep organized with a project management tool like Asana or Evernote that is accessible across multiple home media devices.
4) Make a Daily to-do List
Be as organized as possible. I make a list every day at the very end of my day with my Top Three Daily To-Do Items for the very next day. I begin my day every morning with the 3-item to-do list I made the night before. This sets my day up for more productivity.
I have three children, with three different schedules, who all attend different schools and have different activities. I’m driving around the suburbs and the city a lot. I have to be very diligent with my daily to-do list or things fall through the cracks. I also sometimes listen to podcasts when I am driving my kiddos around everywhere as well.
5) Dedicated Separate Work Space
Designate an area of your home for your workspace. If this is not a possibility, at least have a separate workspace that is just for working and if possible, a spot where you can close the door and not be disturbed. My children know if the door is closed, they are not allowed to disturb me unless it is an emergency.
If you absolutely do not have the space for a desk or separate work area, head to a coffee shop or the local library at a set time a couple of times a week or at the very least, once a week. Sometimes, just the chatter and motion of other people will motivate and invigorate me. Working from a local coffee shop for a couple of hours a week could be very beneficial to your productivity.
6) Set Timers & Give Yourself Breaks
This was a trick I learned pretty early on because the internet itself is so distracting. One-click on a page will lead to another page and then to another and pretty soon, so much time has passed by and the task I was working on didn’t even get more than a glance. Set timers and stick to the task at hand. Once the timer goes off, move on to the next task and a new time frame. I also set a timer for “cruising the internet”. Once the timer goes off for a personal break period or family time, I do not work again until my next scheduled work-at-home time slot.
There is a Chrome Browser extension called “Enabling StayFocusd” that will allow a user to set a time budget for websites to avoid visiting throughout the day. This is a great tool to use, I like to call it my personal grounding tool. I ground myself during work periods and Enabling StayFocused helps me to stay focused,
7) Batch Work
I love batch working. I set up my calendar each month and have at least two to three months of work completed ahead of time. I am able to complete work so far ahead due to having a set schedule in place. I only complete specific tasks on specific days of the week. For instance, I use a scheduler for a social media account and this is set up seasonally and monthly in batches on a specific day of the week. I never have to look at it until my next scheduled time slot because of careful scheduling.
8) Set Priorities & Boundaries
I can’t stress this enough as well. Place a priority on your family and home life and don’t let the work-at-home take over your life and home. Do not spend every available minute working. With careful and considerate calendars and schedules, your personal priorities won’t be encroached by work. It is so easy to just always have your cell phone with you and say just a minute let me check this or read and email or answer this email. I only respond to emails in my time slot and only ones that truly need a response. I delete a lot! I may miss some opportunities, but I have discovered over the years, my children’s happiness is a lot more important to me than a few bucks and a big headache.
9) Avoid Personal Interruptions and Errands
This is the hardest aspect of working from home for me in avoiding personal interruptions and errands, especially since my children are home with me as well. In order to foster my best productivity, I have my boundaries in place (see #8) and I close the door (see #5). However, since my children are at home with me, it is very easy for them to just walk right up to me, interrupt me and disrupt my workflow and my productivity.
10) Hire a Mother’s Helper
I had a mom in my neighborhood who I would swap childcare days with. She worked from home as well and we would swap kids so we could each work. It was amazing. If this is not a possibility, hire a mother’s helper. I hired a college student to work for me one summer when I had my third baby because I had a very rough recovery. She ended up working for my family for over 5 years. She was awesome and we are still friends. My daughters now babysit for her daughter.
I am not perfect and there are times when I have ignored my children or my work for too many minutes trying to find the best balance of life and working from home. The mom guilt is a real thing. I do struggle with a distraction like everyone else, whether it be from my children, work or life in general. But if you keep these Top 10 For Working At Home and Balancing Life in mind, perhaps you can transition to working at home as well. I think Working From Home is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.