If you work from home in addition to being a stay at home parent, you might feel overwhelmed sometimes. Raising kids is a full time job, and aside from nap time (if your child still takes naps) you may not be able to get much work done until after the kids are in bed. Also, as an adult member of the household, you probably have quite a few chores that you are responsible for. Add in trying to find time to exercise, time to pursue your own interests, and time to spend with your spouse or partner and there are just not enough hours in the day.
I have been feeling overwhelmed lately, and the more that I think about it, the easier it is to pinpoint the cause of my feelings. My feelings seem to be associated with being unable to do anything work – related during the day. I did not feel this way until Dylan stopped napping a couple of months ago. Nap time was great because I was able to make phone calls related to my work as an attorney. Nap time was also the time when I made other phone calls related to household things that I am responsible for such as bills, health insurance, doctor appointments, and the like. During nap time I took care of all of those little administrative details that just have to get taken care of, and it was nice to have that time to get things done.
Now that nap time is a thing of the past, I struggle to fit the phone calls and other little things that I need to do into the daytime hours. I would like for my evenings to be purely dedicated to my writing work, but usually much of the housework gets put off until then too. I am not sure why I am having so much trouble adjusting to the loss of a one to two hour window of time during the day when I could get things done, but I am. Perhaps admitting that I am having trouble with it, and with feeling overwhelmed in general is a step in the direction of figuring out what to do about it.
Photo by click on morguefile.com.