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Are you a mom who works from home? Wondering how on earth you’re going to get any work done with the kids at home all summer? Believe it or not you can actually keep your business going this summer, even with the kids at home. Check out our work at home mom summer survival guide!
Be Flexible
How willing or able are you to adjust your normal work at home day to meet the ever-changing demands of tireless children? It can be done!
Adjust your day to take account of everyone being home. If you’re a night owl, work late, after the kids are in bed. If you’re not, start setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier each day and starting work before everyone gets up. After two weeks you’ll be up a whole 3 hours earlier than usual and will get tons of work done before the day even starts.
Combine this with getting slack with kids bedtimes and you could get more time in the morning before they wake up. Then you can be free for most of the day to play with them, do crafts or hang out in the backyard.
Military Planning = Key To Survival
Draw up a schedule that shows when you have help over the summer, whether from your partner, family or a babysitter. If your work demands that you are available at certain times carve those out first when you set your schedule. Try to get your help to cover those hours, or plan meetings for the times you do have someone available.
Schedule in your work time, then schedule in time for fun. Make a daily nature walk a part of your routine, or a daily family pool time, whatever you know your kids will love. Print the schedule out with color-coded time blocks so the kids can see at a glance when your work time ends and the fun time begins.
Say Yes to Help
Playdate? Yes. Local youth program? Yes. Grandma helping out? Yes.
Say yes to everything. It doesn’t mean you’re neglecting your kids. Say that again: It doesn’t mean you’re neglecting your kids.
If your business and your sanity are going to survive a summer with kids at home you need to have time to get work done. Grabbing whatever help you can and putting family time or mom time into the schedule too means everyone gets what they want.
And a happy mom bringing in some bucks is going to be a better playmate than a grumpy one who can’t work and is struggling to pay the bills.
Separate Work and Home
If you have a home office and can shut the door on work and walk away, great. If not, make sure your downtime with your kids is screen-free. Put your phone in another room on silent, put your laptop away.
Having a mom playing while keeping half an eye on a screen is no fun at all, so make the break and be in either work mode or kids mode, never both at the same time.
Get Your Supplies Together
Hit the Dollar Store or Target and get together a great crafts basket. Add some different types of paper and card stock or some scrapbooks and let older kids loose. Some glitter, pompoms and a glue stick will keep them entertained for ages.
Add some old magazines, fabric scraps and a pile of junk form your recycling bin. Then issue some challenges: build a robot, the most beautiful bird or their dream bedroom for example. They’ll love it and you have guaranteed peace for an hour or two.
Be Realistic
Finally, cut yourself some slack. Come to terms with the fact that you may not be as productive during the summer and schedule your work to make the best possible use of your time.
You can easily catch up in September, and you’ll have some precious family memories to look back on when you do. Time with your kids will pass all too soon, and summer vacation is just one part of your WAHM life.
Hopefully this work at home summer survival guide will only be needed this year (and maybe next). But we will get through it together!
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I’ll keep these in mind. I do work from home, and it can be tricky with kids.
Excellent tips! I love what you said about accepting help. That’s key right there.
I’ve been working from home for the last 11 years. It’s definitely not for everyone and takes a lot of self-control.
I like the part you said about asking for help. Difficult to do but it opens you up to trusting people more and it squashes your pride. Thanks for sharing.
My wife has been working from home since March, it wasn’t the easiest thing but she managed very well…Thanks a lot for the tips, they’re great.
I am not a stay at home mom but I work at home. I always try and separate work from home.
It is very different working from home! It is for some but not for all.
Haha. Military planning 100%. I need that for myself right now and I’m not even a mom! 😮
This has come just at the right time for me. I work from home and will have all 3 kids with me. Won’t say no to help!
I love all of this! As a work at home mom, life can be very tough. But I wouldn’t want to do it any other way!
I love these. I don’t work from home but I’m going back to school. This is definitely helpful for school work and not interfere with my boys
Working home for mums may not be easy! That’s such a wonderful survival guide! 🙂
yes separating home and work is essential! I actually have a door to close and lock out all work when it is family time!
These tips and ideas are truly very helpful and useful one…glad you shared these with us..great work though..found it very interesting and helpful blog post..
These are all great tips for moms!
I have worked at home for a long time and I agree that it is essential to separate your work and home. For me, that includes turning social media off.
Not a mother but I stay with my family which consists of two kids who are extremely attached to me. Much required post I’ll say!
These are some great tips we would totally share with the mommies in our group! Honestly, love the ‘Saying Yes to Help’ tip. That can work for any and all of us!
I’m a work at home mom too and things could get stressful every now and then, so I’m glad I got to read this helpful post of yours! Thanks for sharing these tips with us!
These are an amazing tips and ideas. Thanks for sharing with us. Love reading your post it’s great and helpful.
These tips and ideas are truly very helpful and useful…glad you shared these with us..great work though…Thanks indeed for sharing..
This has inspired me to be more mindful about planning my housework, my blogging and family activities. When I write it down I’m more likely to stick to it and I love checking things off!
I wish I did work from home. We have to go back soon and I’m a little nervous about it.
These are such good tips. The hardest part for me is separating home and work. It’s so hard to do when you normally do not work from home.
These are great tips! I’m not a mother myself but I will most definitely be using the Military Planning tha tyou suggested.
Great tips in these scenario, and looks like its going to be long stretched, will keep these mind thanks.