WAHM Writers
Working At Home With Younger Kids
by Jamie Edson Opielski
Ahhh- The luxury of being a Work At Home Mom! Get the husband off to work and the kids off to school. Then it’s all your time to hang out in your PJs and do a little work- well, almost! Unless you still have younger children at home, then your working schedule tends to have a bucket full of distractions.
All the Work At Home experts say “Create a schedule and keep to it”, “Make sure your family knows when it’s your work time- blah,blah,blah”.
Well, try explaining your work schedule to almost four-year-old twin boys. That’ll fly real well! Like they’re going to fight, eat and play around MY schedule. I’ve pretty much learned to just deal with it as it happens and not set any particular schedule at all. Though I do try to accomplish the majority of my workload and housework before my older kids come home from school.
I can say that the experts were right on when they say to have a private space of your own when you work. Just recently I got moved into my new office, a small room by the kitchen. Before that my office space was in a corner in the living room where the distractions were tremendous. One of those distractions was the television. Now that the TV is not an issue, my concentration is higher and I tend to get my work done quicker. So all in all, the move into the office has been great for my business.
By the time the next school year starts my mornings should be well on track with a decent working schedule that I can hold up to. The twins will be starting Pre-K, which will give me more uninterrupted work time. So all four of my children will all be in school, finally! Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with them, but hey, it’s time. The positives of being a WAHM just keep getting bigger!
As I think about that extra quiet time I’ll have when they start school I know that I am going to have to be a disciplined person as far as work goes. The other luxuries start creeping into my head like; going back to bed, laying around zoning, shopping and other non-work related activities. So staying disciplined is a key factor in work at home success. But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?
Ok, so back to reality. There is still 4-6 months left until the twins start school. So trying to work with them hanging off the back of my chair or biting each other underneath my desk still lingers on. I never imagined the overload of interruptions that could take place in just a few hours with kids at home. And come summer time, which is right around the corner, all the kids will be home- I can only imagine the distractions I’ll have then. Especially with the way my weekends go, I don’t want to imagine summer just yet.
I have learned through my work at home ventures to constantly save my work and never leave my computer with something unsaved, to proofread everything especially when you are constantly talking to your kids, to have a well full of patience, to divide my time and take MANY breaks from whatever I am working on. Because I know that my work will still be sitting right where I left it, my kids will not be. In fact sometimes I have to play a little hide-n-seek to find them.
So regardless of what the experts say, you as a work at home parent have to find what works best for you. If you have younger children at home or they are in school or all grown up, never set you standards so high that you can’t accomplish what you set. If you lock yourself up in a room for hours at a time, work at night or the wee hours of the morning- my advice is to just go with it.
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