Working from home can be a challenge. Throw kids into the mix and that challenge increases tenfold. This isn’t to say it’s not possible. In fact, due to growing technology, more parents are working from home than ever before.
So, how do those parents work from home with kids? Scheduling specific times for work and being highly task-oriented are key to being successful in working from home. Without a schedule and to-do list, getting work done can be more difficult than it needs to be.
Working from home requires a certain level of dedication and focus on the task at hand. Learning how to do such things with kids in the house is essential. In this brief guide, we’ll go over the tips and tricks needed to succeed at being a work at home parent.
Setting Up a Regular Schedule
When it comes to working from home with kids, a schedule is imperative. Developing an effective schedule for working is dependent upon the number of hours needed to work each day. There are typically three times each day that work can get done effectively in a home with children: early morning, nap time, and late nights.
You should be able to have an educated guess about what time your children will start waking up. For example, if your child is typically an 8 am riser you may need to wake up between 5 and 6 in the mornings to allow yourself a couple of hours of uninterrupted work. While this may be a difficult task for parents that are not morning people, there are a few things that you can do to make mornings easier.
First, get up at the same time every day. Do not sleep in on the weekends or when you don’t have any work to do. This will help your internal clock normalize. Second, let some natural light in! Because sunlight increases melatonin, the hormone in our bodies that makes us sleepy, getting exposure to the sun first thing helps our bodies to wake up more naturally. Third, avoid naps! A daytime nap can often make it difficult for us to sleep at night.
Nighttime should be dark – so dim the lights to teach your body that it’s close to bedtime. Allow yourself an hour or so prior to bed with no screens or work. Turn off your brain before you get in bed so that you are more likely to fall asleep quickly. Getting better sleep is key to waking up rested in the mornings.
While there are a lot of possibilities for actions to take in becoming a morning person, the handful listed above include some of the most effective. Once you’ve gotten used to your morning routine, you may find that it is the time in which you do the best work. Many parents that work from home tend to consider the early morning to be the most important working hours of the day.
Scheduling an afternoon work session is a great way to get work done during regular business hours. For most working from home parents, this is during your child’s nap time. If your child naps each day from around 1 pm until 2:30 pm, you’ve found yourself an additional 90 minutes of potentially uninterrupted work time. It is important to start working as soon as your child goes down for their nap, as most parents know the nap is not always as long as we hope for it to be!
If you’re struggling to get your child to take a nap long enough for you to get some work done, try keeping them active in the mornings! Rather than spending the morning doing quiet activities, go to the park or let them play in the yard. If it’s cold, hula hoops and dance parties are great ways to keep them moving! A worn out kid is more likely to take a quality nap than a child that spent the morning in front of the TV or coloring.
At this point in the day, a working parent should have found themselves about 4 hours of working time from the early morning hours and during your child’s nap. The remainder of the working hours would start once your child has gone to bed. With an 8 pm bedtime, a working parent can find themselves an additional 1-2 hours of work before winding down to go to sleep.
Getting enough sleep is key to keeping this working routine going strong. The average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night. This would mean going to sleep at 10:30 pm and rising at 5:30 am puts working parents right at the 7-hour mark. Getting less than those 7 hours often means the inability to wake up for the morning work session, falling asleep while working in any of the day’s sessions, and accomplishing subpar work.
Following this working schedule will provide the work from home parent approximately 6 hours of uninterrupted work per day. Given that the typical full-time employee works a 40 hour work week, a work from home parent will need to ensure that the hours worked are far more productive than those that would be worked in an office.
If working part-time is the goal of the work from home parent, these hours are more than enough to earn that part-time income. However, for a full-time employee, it is important to find ways to accomplish more in fewer hours. Staying on task and being focused is ideal for the work at home parent.
Task Oriented
It may seem obvious that a work from home parent has to actually work, but the key to success is accomplishing tasks quickly and effectively. Unlike an office job where you can chat with a co-worker in the break room or send off a few texts to your spouse, working fewer hours means getting more done in the time allotted.
At the beginning of each week, sit down with your calendar and find out what tasks need to be accomplished and when. Then you can establish your task list or to-do list. Set specific jobs for the days’ morning sessions, afternoon sessions, and evening sessions. Remember to estimate how much time you will have in each session so that you can set realistic goals. If your child never naps for more than an hour, be sure to pencil in tasks that can be completed quickly.
It is also important to put aside any distractions. If you have a habit of checking social media every 20 minutes, use an app to block access to your possible distractions for a set time. If you feel the need to make a snack at this time of day, be sure it is done beforehand and nearby so that no time is wasted. Remember, these things may have been distractions that you had time for in an office setting, but they are not usually ones that can be afforded when working from home.
If you are someone that regularly struggles with concentrating or finds yourself unable to focus – don’t worry. Working from home with kids is still possible for you. There are several ways to improve your focus!
Improving your focus can be as simple as breaking down your to-do list. If you had “write article 1” on your afternoon list of things to complete, maybe breaking it down into pieces would make it seem less daunting. For example, instead of writing the article all at once, your morning session could include these tasks: 1. Write an outline for article 1, and 2. Write introductory paragraphs for article 1. By finishing those tasks at a different time, your afternoon to-do list would only include the tasks of writing the body and closing paragraphs.
Another focus improving trick is to use your computer in full-screen mode. This allows distractions like your web browser, games, and other distractions to be less prominent. Out of sight, out of mind!
One of the best tricks for focus, however, is to not only plan according to the time you have allotted but also by your level of energy at that time. This simply means, if you are tired by the end of the day, it is best to leave the most simple tasks for that time slot. If you are most energized in the afternoons, the most difficult task may make more sense at that time.
By learning to focus and be more task-oriented, working from home with kids is an entirely plausible situation. It can be difficult at times, but the benefits of a work from home situation most usually outweigh any potential issues that may arise.
Need More Time or More Space?
If the 6 hours of work each day just isn’t enough time, it may be necessary to hire a part-time babysitter. A babysitter may also come in handy if you have scheduled meetings that are unavoidable. Even if the babysitter is only around for a few hours for two to three days a week, you’ve bought yourself an additional 6-9 hours per week. Making use of this kind of time can be huge in productivity.
While it may make your parenting a little harder, it may be possible for some parents to work and watch their kids simultaneously. Even if it’s just 15 minutes of working on your phone while supervising an older child’s bath time or allowing an extra episode of Mickey Mouse so that you can finish that certain task. There are ways to do both, the question lies in if you truly want to.
If you are a parent that is working from home primarily because of other benefits, such as the lack of a commute or a business owner that does not want to pay for unnecessary office space, time is often less of an issue and the space in which your work is completed is the focus. In this case, having a home office is ideal. However, if that is not an issue for you, many work-from-home parents find a small space in the corner of the bedroom is sufficient.
As long as your make-shift office has a door, your office space can be where your home has the room. Generally, a workspace requires a desk, a computer, and some quiet. If there is a spot in your home where these things can be found, even with kids in the house, that’s an office waiting to be used. If your intent on working from home was to focus on your family, then space is probably less of an issue and being with your kids is the primary goal.
Working from home is often something that parents do so that they can be around their children more. Just remember to be around your children while you’re doing it. If your primary reason for working from home was to raise your kids, be sure to do just that.
Be Present
A mistake a lot of working from home parents make is spending more time working than actually being home. It is a challenging thing to find balance, but it is possible if you truly want to. Informing your spouse or partner of the schedule for the week is a great way to ensure they know when you’re available. They will be more likely to understand that you cannot be interrupted during the set working hours so that you can be with your family for all of the other hours.
Too much focus on work can cause a child to act out in search of attention. Drawing the dividing line between raising kids and working from home allows them the attention they seek during “off hours” and gives the working parent the necessary hours to get work done. Juggling both successfully starts as a learning curve, but can easily be accomplished with some scheduling and dedication.
Going as far as scheduling out your child’s day can be a huge help to the working parent. Know what time you’ll be making and eating breakfast, when you will have playtime together and when the child is allowed to watch television. Block out time for your child to have learning activities and when they’ll be taking a bath. Knowing what is planned when helps to give the peace of mind that everything is getting done. Plus, your kids will be a big part of your day – which will improve their behavior!
Kids are not always predictable, and that’s okay! A great way to handle this is to block out a longer time than necessary to account for those unpredictabilities. If you set aside a full hour to eat lunch but know it will probably only take half an hour, there’s an extra half an hour for those kid-emergencies.
If you’re aiming to work from home with kids, remember the keys to success: scheduling, being focused on the task at hand, making the time to get in the extra work, creating a workspace when there is none, and making sure to spend quality time with your kids! By following this work from home plan, you’re sure to see some success in the home, both in actual work and in family life. It’s a rewarding thing to do both well. Put forth the effort, and you can do it, too!
Related Questions
What types of jobs can I do from home?
There are nearly unlimited options for working from home. Some examples include freelance writing, transcription, telemarketing, customer service, and being a virtual assistant.
How can I create a functional office space in my bedroom?
Even with the smallest space, an office area can be created in a bedroom. A great option involves a collapsible desk and functional chair with wall shelving. With a little creativity, the possibilities are endless
A number of work from home careers can be done at any and all hours. You might look into transcription or freelance writing.