
Work At Home without Going Crazy: The Basics to Get Organized
How Can I Manage To Work From Home
More and more moms are working at home for a variety of reasons. Often, child management is the primary motivation, but there are others: we work alone so no need to have a location, office rentals are too expensive, we did not find a satisfactory way of care, we do not want to work full time, etc.
Regarding the management of children, there is the case of mothers with children not yet schooled to keep at home, and the case of moms who wish to have freedom of time to pick up children from school, judo / swimming etc.
Basically, the main benefit is: freedom!
And the main disadvantage is: freedom!
Yes, often, it is difficult to manage this “freedom“. We use it, we abuse it, we waste it, we forget it, we venerate it, we benefit from it, we are proud of it, we optimize it … or not. In short, we must tame this freedom, and this, in a personalized way. We can do it according to:
Personality
How do I like to work? Do I like doing things in an orderly way, am I one of the kind to wait (or give me) specific instructions, Am I very relational even in my professional sphere, or not? Am I more likely to look for action? There are dozens of other questions about ones personality. The answers will show how comfortable you can be with working from home.
Workload / nature of work
Is your work rather administrative? Do you have to carry out concrete tasks (e.g. make the count, do the programming of a site by answering a very precise specification, sew three bags a day?) Or abstract / creative tasks that require inspiration, reflection (write an article, make a logo, and design the prototype of a bag?)… The concrete tasks can be more easily managed by “planning in the short term”, see daily, while the abstract tasks can ask more flexibility … Depending on the different tasks you have to perform; you need to give yourself some leeway in managing your schedule.
Priorities
You probably have professional goals VS family priorities. Juggling between the two is a real exercise! And of course, the priorities can switch from one moment to another … e.g. the child who has just slipped on the lego and who was very bad…! You must immediately release your graphic tablet and start the marathon (kisses that heals, hug, etc …). I let you imagine the scenario in case of gastro … You have understood, separate family life (“home”) and professional life is, in this case, utopian. The most important is the balance that everyone finds there. If you are in the evening and it does not bother you to return to work once the children are in bed, no problem … If it is the organization that allows you to maintain an activity while being on time out of school and available until the evening, why not?! If you work on Saturday morning, but are available every Wednesday and the children have understood this (if they are old enough to understand), it’s great!
But above all, the reasons for the choice of work at home
Depending on the reason (s), each will have to see which activities to focus on. And most importantly, we must remember regularly why we chose to work at home.
- Is it mainly to be with children?
- To adapt to school hours?
- To have a clean house and the kitchen ready, the table set for the evening meal?
- To help develop the fledgling business of the husband?
- To develop your own business and limit the costs of local pro?
The one who wants to have a clean house and the kitchen ready before everyone comes back will spend the time it will take for that. While the one, who wants above all to help develop the business of her husband will have other priorities than cooking.
Important Points a Working Mother Should Remember
The modern woman is no longer confined to the role of mother and wife, and that’s good. There is a societal evolution that has decreased inequalities between men and women and raised questions about this multiplication of roles. How to reconcile my role of mother with my work? How to be a good mother without setting aside my professional ambitions? Can my pro life endanger my relationship? There are so many questions to which we will try to answer in this article.
Being a mom and working
It’s hard to find a balance between motherhood and one’s own ambitions. Evolving professionally necessarily implies making personal sacrifice, in the same way that maintaining one’s couple and becoming a mother will inevitably lead to professional sacrifices. How to manage this ambivalence? Start by accepting the fact that you cannot be on all fronts and that you do not stick to the image of a perfect woman that the company conveys.
Many mothers have the feeling of never doing enough, of not being able to organize themselves as they should be or not being sufficiently present. You have the right to be tired and imperfect without necessarily feeling guilty. While the evolution of society allows fathers to become more involved in their family life, statistics show that women are more involved in household-related tasks as well as children, even when they are doing in a full time job.
Reconcile a couple’s life and professional ambitions
Like all forms of relationships, a couple deserves to be maintained by simple attentions and compromises (on the part of both men and women). We avoid going out of the office every night of the week after 8 pm, we do not bring home work (as far as possible) and we stop talking nonstop about this hyper important contract or colleague who annoys us for some time. The gap between the private sphere and the professional sphere is essential so that one does not encroach on the other. Otherwise you are likely to face a burnout in a short time.
And finally, if the balance between work, child and couple requires good organization and the establishment of simple rules, it’s all about feeling and communication.
In Conclusion
A mom who works at home should not forget that the house is a “place”, it is the family home, but it can also be the birthplace of ambitious projects, professional dreams, life projects. Of course, everything is better when the mother chose her home business and made this choice with conviction. And even if it is a “food job”, it is no less valuable if this job is done to allow you to live more serenely certain steps.