Ask WAHS Leslie - Balancing Working At Home and Children

by Leslie Truex

Published on this site: April 19th, 2005 - See more articles from this month...

Hi Leslie,

I have finally fulfilled my dream of working at home but I'm finding it very hard to get my work done and still have time for my family. I thought working at home would make it easy for me to be flexible but I'm finding myself telling my kids "not now" a lot. Any suggestions? Debbie, MI

Hi Debbie,

When we begin to dream about working at home, the work part is often the last thing we think about. Instead we imagine sleeping in late, wearing our pajamas all day, watching Barney with the kids then going to the park, keeping the laundry folded and so on. But the reality is having enough time to work and play is difficult to balance. Working at home doesn't really add time to your schedule; it simply
makes it more flexible. Many parents think this flexibility means being able to parent first and work second; or working and giving family time simultaneously. But its difficult to work and parent at the same time. And you can't expect to earn a good income during children's nap times and then spending the rest of the day being a mom.

One of things that makes working at home hard is that boundaries between work and home are not clear unless you make them so. At a regular job, you leave home to work. When you come home, its all family time. Working at home often means doing both often at the same time. I've combed my daughter's hair while on the phone with a client. I have made dinner while listening in on a training call. The problem with having these "jobs" overlap is that it can get confusing and overwhelming.

My strategies include setting strict work and non-work time and then doing my darnedest to keep to the schedule. My day may go something like this: 6:30 up and get the kids to school; 7:30 - 8:00 exercise; 8- 8:30 housework (I use the Fly Lady Method - Sink Reflections by Marla Cilly), 8:30 to 9:00 breakfast, shower etc; 9:00 am to 12:00 work, lunch; 1: 3:00 work, 3:00 - 3:30 nap (me), 3:30 to 7 kids home and family time. If I need to work more, I may work from 7- 10 pm with a break around 8:30 pm to put the kids to bed. During the summer this changes as my children are home. With kids home, I work in hour shifts with short breaks with the kids in between. I also try to finish early in the day so we can go swimming or to the park. It's usually their reward for letting me work in peace. During this time, I may work before they get up and at night more to make for the lost time.

It also helps to keep your tasks organized. I use the desktop organizer for Windows and Palm called Agendus (http://www.iambic.com/). It allows me to have my daily to-dos and schedule appear on my weekly schedule as opposed to just the daily schedule. This helps me stay focused on projects or other things that take time to complete, make my appointments, get those pesky little things done like a quick call to question a bill, schedule my weekly and monthly items as well as other things I need to keep organized. You don't need a computer system to be organized. Paper can work too. The point is to develop a system that will help you keep track of all the work and non-work related things you need to get done.

Finally, you will likely need to give up the idea that working at home will the picture perfect situation you imagined. You will need to prioritize your time. I would like to spend all my time with the kids, but I need the money. So I try to balance out the two. If something needs to be dropped, it's usually the housework. In the end, the better organized you are about your time, the more time you will have for both work and family.

Ask WAHS Leslie is Leslie Truex a stay and work-at-home mom who has been helping people work at home since 1998 with her web site Work-At-Home Success (http://www.workathomesuccess.com) She is also the author of Jobs At Home: A Complete Guide to Finding a Work-At-Home Job. Ask WAHS Leslie is a weekly column. You can submit a question to Ask WAHS Leslie by emailing here. [email protected]