When you work from home, you have the power to figure out exactly how and when to fit your work into your day. For a stay – at – home parent, the amount of flexibility that working from home provides can make the difference between being able to bring in a little bit of income to help with personal or family expenses and not being able to work at all. Of course, since the parenting part of a stay – at – home parent’s day is constantly evolving and changing based upon the needs of the children, it is important that your work – from – home tools and methods are adjusted periodically in order to continue to fit nicely into your day.
Over the course of the past three and a half years, my work – from – home strategy has changed right along with my kids. In the beginning when there was just Dylan and he was just a couple of months old, I logged many more hours of writing work each week than I do now because he needed so much sleep. As he grew, his sleep schedule went from many naps each day to two naps a day, then to one nap and finally (at two years old) to no nap at all on most days. By the time that Blake arrived in March of last year, I was not sitting down to work at all during the day – only after the kids had gone to bed.
Not only has the scheduling aspect of my home – based work changed over time, the tools that I use to do my work have also changed. When I have to spend the rare afternoon working outside of the home, family members have been kind enough to care for the boys. Occasionally, though, I have to make conference calls. The other day, I had to be on such a call and I wondered how I was going to manage that. Fortunately, I got the idea that I could take the kids for a walk in the double stroller. I knew that at the very least, Blake would fall asleep because the timing of the call coincided with his nap time. I felt that Dylan would probably just be looking around, as he is often quiet and observant while we are out walking. As luck would have it, both of them fell asleep and I was able to find a shady spot for us to rest while I took the call. After the call was finished, I finished walking to the park to enjoy an afternoon with the kids.
Working from home can be logistically challenging and interesting at the same time. It can also be fin and very rewarding. If you think that you are interested in working from home but you don’t know how you will manage to find the time, why not take another look at the time and tools that you have available to you for getting work done. You may find that at second glance, working from home is doable with a little creative planning.