New (temporary) normal: work from home with kids at home.
How can you be productive while parenting? How can you actually do your job when you have to simultaneously supervise children?
As a work from home mother of a toddler who sometimes has childcare help and sometimes doesn’t, I have some ideas for you. Consider this your work from home parent pep talk. Here are six practical tips you can use right now to get things done while supervising kids at home. You can do this!
6 Tips for Getting Work Done with Kids at Home
1. Release the Monday through Friday 9-5 expectation and look for hidden pockets of time. During this strange season, it will be difficult if not impossible to get uninterrupted 40 hours of work in during traditional work hours. So go ahead and release yourself from that expectation. Maybe you have the kind of position where the number of hours you put in doesn’t even matter as long as you’re getting your work done. But if you do have a job where hours are counted, remember, there are plenty of other hours in the week that are perfectly acceptable to work on projects, especially if you can do so independently.
As a work from home mom of a toddler, a world of possibility opened up to me when I realized I didn’t actually just have the window of 8 AM-6 PM Monday-Friday to complete my work. All hours of the week, Monday-Sunday were fair game to me. I don’t “deserve” to only work during traditional work hours. If I need to work at off times, then that’s what I’ll do. There are hidden pockets of time where you can get important projects done. For example, if I worked during my daughter’s nap and for three hours each evening and did not work at any point during the rest of the week I would clock at least 35 hours. It’s time to rethink our schedules if needed. Where are the hidden pockets of time in your schedule?
2. Get crystal clear on what matters most and plug it into your schedule. At the beginning of the week (or at the end of the prior week if you’re a Laura Vanderkam disciple like me) jot down what needs to be accomplished this week in order for you to win. Then estimate how long each project will take and block it out on your calendar. I can’t tell you how much more productive and efficient I have become since doing this as opposed to just having a long “To Do List” and working my way through it with no scheduling strategy in place.
I typically have somewhere between five and ten Big Rocks on my list for each week. These are the first items that get put on my schedule. Other less important items get scheduled around them. So even if I find myself short on time on a given day, if I knock one of those items off my list, I’ve won. This practice not only helps me accomplish what matters most, it is also an excellent exercise in determining what is most important. Often in work we don’t even take the time to decipher what matters most.
3. If you are an employee, be communicative with your supervisor about the reality of the situation at home. Standing meetings with more than three or four people may not be able to be moved, but calls that pop up with just a handful of people should be able to be scheduled at a time that works for everyone in attendance. Ask to adjust planned calls and meetings in advance so it coincides with planned quiet hours for your children. And don’t be afraid to liberally use that mute button on your phone. No need for everyone to hear everyone else’s background noise for the duration of the call.
We are all in this boat together so your supervisor will likely understand your request for flexibility. And he or she will likely understand a little noise in the background as well. Remember to have grace with yourself and your family in the same way you would give grace to someone else.
4. Employ the 80/20 Rule and the Minimum Effective Dose. You may not be able to do everything you were doing prior to working from home with kids. But that may be ok! Take a look at what has been on your plate with fresh eyes. What can be eliminated? What truly did not move the needle? What was wasteful? According to the 80/20 Rule, 20% of efforts yield 80% of results. What is the 20% of your work that matters most?
Getting clarity on the Minimum Effective Dose is crucial too. Water boils at 212 degrees. There is no need to heat it to 213 degrees. What is the equivalent in your work to 213 degrees? What has been eating up your time and energy that has really not helped you or your team reach its goals?
5. Ask for help. If you have a partner, both of you are impacted by working from home and having kids at home. While often childcare duties fall a little more on to one parent than the other, it’s important that everyone pitch in to help. And it’s even more important to ask for the help that you need. Don’t expect your partner to be a mind reader. Try to anticipate what your needs will be. I recognize that my patience and energy wane with my toddler after three hours of uninterrupted time together. That is a good time for me to tap out, if even for a little while.
And take a look at your schedules together. Determine how you can split duties during traditional work hours and make up time missed during evenings, early mornings, and weekends. In my family our daughter needs attentive care for about 27 hours of the traditional work week, so we have determined how to split those hours up between the two of us and complete our work during non-traditional hours. Strategize, slice and dice those schedules, and collaborate.
6. Remember: it’s a season. Keep things in perspective. This is a weird time where everyone has to make sacrifices--a really strange phenomenon in our individualistic culture. But making sacrifices for the wellbeing of others is refining and sharpens character in a way that you know well because you are a parent.
This is a season of sacrifice and it is a season that will end. So don’t be dismayed. Take it one day at a time. Don’t let your mind race to the long view and get anxious about how many days this will last. Just focus on today. Remember this is temporary. Take stock of what is good around you. And choose to do what you can to make today great.
