Valuable Tips and Advice for Working Moms Who Want to Work at Home
In celebration of this year’s upcoming Mother’s Day, SuccessStory will be featuring posts throughout this week related to celebrating the power of successful working mothers everywhere. Today, this article will posit some truly helpful pieces of advice to working moms who want to stay home to do their work and how they can balance their business and domestic duties under the same roof. Watch this space for more of our Mother’s Day 2017 coverage.
The great thing about working at home is that one feels more comfortable performing their tasks in casual and familiar spaces rather than being confined in a rigid office environment. And while telecommuting isn’t exactly a new thing, the option for people to work in the comforts of their own homes is something that’s being readily embraced by more and more people. In particular, a large majority of these professionals who want to stay at home to manage their business tasks are working mothers.
It’s honestly not that surprising why moms with professional careers would elect to work at home because this decision allows them to hit two birds with one stone that much easier. From the perspective of convenience, it might seem like working moms wouldn’t have to worry anymore about having to commute a long distance to work, but in other aspects, there are still some pressing challenges about working from home that working mothers have to face.
Chief among these challenges that working moms have to confront when they decide to work at home is the conflicting tension of managing their professional life while also supervising domestic or household duties. Traditionally, the home has always been a predominantly matriarchal domain, but modern day mothers are now fully aware that such conventional inclinations are no longer so stringent. Career women with families are now privy to the knowledge that they possess the ability to manage that tricky balance of work and home without one compromising the other.
But despite their awareness of their inherent abilities, they still often struggle with resolving the dilemma of the aforementioned balancing act. Make no mistake: being a working mother isn’t something to be dismissed because the term heavily implies two important jobs and not everyone—men included and not just women—can have the capacity to handle two jobs simultaneously. But career moms don’t have to suffer any longer with this constant push-and-pull because there are ways where both of their lives can live in symbiotic harmony.
The job of a working mom is never done, even when she completes everything and finds the precious time to relax. There will always be something important which can pop up at any time that demands her attention, and she has to address it at the soonest possible moment before it gets out of control. And if you’re a working mom reading this piece, then you know that this statement holds heavy credence. Working moms such as yourself always have to be prepared for anything and everything that comes your way; even more so if you make the conscious decision to work from home and not within an office space.
Selecting this choice means that you have to adapt to a different set of rules now that you’re mostly working on an independent level but also making sure that you’re keeping a close eye on your domestic spaces. It might seem difficult at first glance, but it’s definitely not that impossible of a goal to achieve. Because when you think about it, there’s nothing that a successful working mom can’t do, and if you’re able to raise a family, then you can most certainly work at home and do it really well. Look to the details below for more information.
Work without any household distractions
Here’s the bottom line you need to know before you even start your work day at home: you’re never going to get anything done if your family members—especially your kids—are still in the house and are constantly coming to you for assistance on something. While this won’t necessarily be a problem during school days when your children are away for most of the day, you’ll certainly find yourself climbing an uphill battle during the summer months when there’s no class in session and your kids are mostly stuck at home under your supervision. So what’s a working mom to do in this situation?
Answer: exert your authority as a parental figure and tell your kids to go spend some time outside while you’re working at home. Make them understand that as much as you would like to cater to their needs, they must understand that you’re working hard to ensure that they are living the best home life possible. Encourage them to spend those summer days outside with their friends so you could work in your house free from any distractions that kids can often cause due to their presence. For your peace of mind, make sure that they always have their mobile phones with them so you can reach them at any time should you finish your work early and tell them to return home.
Stick to a comforting daily ritual
Sometimes all you need to get you through a busy work day is to find comfort in the small things that will give you some clarity and strength. Sticking to a habit or ritual will ensure that you’ll focus on the important things on your schedule and be less tempted to stray away from your daily goals. When your mind is trained to follow a regular routine, your chances of getting through the day without any mishaps will be much higher. For instance, if you’re a person who simply can’t get through the morning without first drinking a hot mug of coffee, then you know the first thing you should do when you wake up is to brew a fresh pot of coffee so that you’ll be able to face the day alert and fully charged.
Just imagine what it would be like if you simply forgot to have your daily morning coffee fix. You probably won’t have any proper work done because you’ll feel grumpy and your body isn’t used to working without that ritualistic element that fuels your energy. Whatever works for you and gets you through the day, make sure that you don’t stray away from that habit since comforting habits are assets that will help you be more productive working at home.
Always clear your to-do list every day
Nothing will stress you out than knowing you didn’t finish everything that you needed to do for the day and you still have your domestic duties to think of such as picking up your kids from school or preparing dinner for your family. When you still have unfinished business left over for any given work day, it simply means that you need to improve your time management skills since it’s not healthy for you to accumulate backlogs of your work, which will affect your household responsibilities. Furthermore, you shouldn’t ever attempt to finish your work during a weeknight when you’re supposed to spend that time of the day bonding with your spouse and children, or to put it bluntly, the time of day when they need your presence and attention the most.
In order to ensure that your to-do list is cleared every day, you have to be smart about prioritizing tasks according to the level of importance. Choose the tasks that are the easiest or fastest to finish so that you’ll dedicate a large portion of your working hours completing the assignments that require more time. This way, you won’t have any trouble breezing through your daily itinerary and it’ll give you extra leeway to be ready when the rest of your family comes home from school or work.
Be strategic when scheduling meetings
Sometimes, you really can’t avoid having to attend meetings—whether virtual or in person—if your work calls for it. When you know that a meeting is about to take place, you need to make sure that you’ve planned ahead so that you’ll be prepared for the situation. If the meeting is to take place on a virtual conference call, then it’ll be a little easier for you to manage things because all you need to do is to make sure that your family isn’t around so that you’ll be fully undisturbed for the entire duration of your video conference. However, if the meeting should be in the flesh and the person or people who organized the meeting insists on congregating outside of your home, then you have to meet their demands since it would be rude to contradict a client’s wishes.
For this particular situation, you should make sure that all of your family members will be informed beforehand that you’ll be meeting with someone important for work outside of the house for a few hours on the appointed day. This way, they will know not to disturb you or wonder where you’ll be since you’ve already told them what you’ll be doing. In case you’ll anticipate coming home late from your meeting, make sure to prepare dinner beforehand and store it in the fridge so that your family could simply reheat it when they come home.
Don’t be afraid to hire domestic help
If you have the financial resources to do so, then don’t hesitate to hire a full-time housekeeper or a nanny so that your workload will be lessened in the long run. You shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid to hire domestic help, especially if you know for a fact that doing so will allow you to focus more time and energy into making sure that your business duties will run smoothly. Hiring housekeepers or nannies are recommended, especially if you have a lot of kids and need an extra pair of hands to sort out chores you simply can’t do on your own such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry.
However, this should be a decision that must be discussed together with your family because this is something that everyone should have a say on, including your kids. You just can’t assume that they’ll be okay or comfortable with the idea of a stranger coming into your home to assist in domestic tasks. If they have no objections to having a nanny or housekeeper around, then the next step you should do is to look for reputable agencies that caters to dispatching household help. Make sure that you should always double-check the references of potential candidates and speak to each of them one-on-one before deciding to hire the right person for the job.
