My Secrets to Making Working from Home with Kids More Efficient and Less Stressful

The pandemic has opened the door to more flexible work approaches and the option for many to work from home. Parents in particular appreciate the additional flexibility that this provides to accommodate for the needs and schedule of their children as well as manage the numerous holiday breaks, sick leaves, days off, etc. But though it has its perks, I've noticed that many parents are finding it extremely challenging to balance work and children when working from home and experience a lot of stress related to it.

I get you, I truly do! I have my own business and work from home. My kids were 5 and 8 when the lockdown hit and being a single Mom there was no one else to cover my back and no option to reduce my workload - but we found our way to making it work and it's paying off today!

How the kids and I rock this set-up did not happen overnight and it took a bit of trial and error to find what worked best for everyone. As the Autumn school break is starting this week for many parents, I know many will find themselves having to juggle work emergencies in between time with the kids. This is often even more challenging as the guilt often creeps in for having to work during holidays. So I thought I'd recap the strategies that worked best for us to help you make your workdays more productive yet less stressful and to ensure you have happy kids as you do so!

So here's what worked best for us!

#1. Kids first - Work after

This may sound like a strange recommendation but I noticed that I have a much better connection with my kids when I take time with them first. They are more receptive, more cooperative and it just fills their need to feel important, loved, and prioritized. I let them know what to expect and the fact that I need to work but that they are important so I first want to spend time with them and then we'll have to each get busy with other things so I can get some work done. As overly simple as it may seem - IT WORKS! Simply, because it sends the right message. Also because one of the key secrets of time management is to always start with the most important things, otherwise you let the emergencies and distractions rule your schedule. So start with spending time with your kids, make them feel important, make them feel like you are a team, and enlist their cooperation and you'll be surprised by the results you get!

#2. Make a plan and set expectations

Children fare better when they have stability and predictability. Knowing what to expect makes them feel like they have a certain level of control over their schedule and let's face it, we all do better when we have realistic expectations! So get your kids involved and draft a daily plan together, detailing when you will spend time together and when you will need to work while they will have to play independently. Make it visual and age-appropriate so it is easy to follow for your child and make them feel like they have their role and responsibility in the schedule. Children thrive when given trust and responsibility and this is an excellent opportunity to get your kids more involved and to show them trust by enlisting their help.

Realistically, when working from home, you will have to work in blocks and alternate the working blocks with time dedicated to your children. In short, if you ask for their cooperation to play by themselves while you need to work, make sure the time you plan for them to play alone while you work is realistic for their age. You may also need to stop more often to give them some attention and get them started on a different activity to keep them entertained. Take this into consideration when making your planning and plan your workload accordingly so you can limit interruptions when working on more demanding tasks which I recommend doing earlier in the day when they are less tired and more likely to play alone for longer stretches.

#3. Reward your kids for the extra responsibilities they take

Make this a give and take exercise but make sure you use appropriate rewards. The reward of taking on extra responsibilities such as playing independently so Mom and/or Dad can work is quite grown-up responsibility and your kids will be extremely proud to be told that they are taking up grow-up responsibilities. But grown-ups also have more privileges and more freedom so make sure you compensate them with something that is in line with the contribution they are making. I'm not saying here to give your 8-year-old the same level of freedom you'd give a 12-year-old but rather that this is a great opportunity to teach children that as they grow, they will indeed have more freedom and permissions but that this comes together with more responsibilities as well. Trust them, give them a bit of rope so they feel empowered and you'll be surprised how they react!

For example, I've given my kids the possibility to read before their bedtime. If they are quietly reading, they are allowed to stay up longer. To my great surprise, they have taken the initiative to switch off the lights and go to bed by themselves and they have been very reasonable in doing so as they never stretched their bedtime by more than 15-20mins!

#4. Distribute your workload strategically

Plan, plan, plan. Start first with the important and demanding tasks, children are more likely to play independently for longer when they are more rested in the morning, and in the same line of thought this is usually the moment when you will be more focused to tackle more demanding work - so do that FIRST!

As your energy and focus decrease and as your kids' need for attention increases, you should progressively shift to less demanding tasks such as answering emails. So here's how to do it:

i. Think of the 2-3 most important things you need to achieve in your day, write them down and start with this. Forget emails, forget all the little urgent to-do items on your list and EAT THE DAMN FROG! Not familiar with this time management term? Basically, you need to first attack the big chunks, the things you like less (and tend to postpone and procrastinate over), and the important projects before they get urgent and stressful. Tackling those first means you leverage the period of the day when kids are generally calmest and have just started entertaining themselves and are therefore more likely to give you a longer stretch of uninterrupted worktime - USE IT WISELY!

ii. Squeeze in the little unimportant tasks. Whatever we do first is generally where we spend more time (and our best energy and focus). For this reason, a good time management approach is to refrain from starting your day by reading your emails, answering all the little emergencies, and tackling the endless small bites on your to-do list that take up a lot of your time but do not get you any closer to completing your more important tasks. So the best strategy for those is to do them when you have more time pressure to complete them quickly. Typically, I recommend blocking a fixed amount of time to handle emails (e.g. 30mins 2-3 times per day max), and ideally just before lunch and at the end of the day when your energy and focus are lower. With kids around, it's also a good approach to arrange your schedule so you can do this at the time when they may be getting more tired and less independent in their play as this work generally requires less concentration, is of shorter duration, and will be less affected by interruptions.

#5. Cut down the list aka use strategic laziness

I love talking about strategic laziness as it is a term that generally surprises people and for this very specific reason, it's more memorae and more likely to be implemented. In fact, strategic laziness is a concept that I use in general career management, and work from home is a good opportunity to implement this in your approach as well!

But what do I mean by strategic laziness, exactly? Look at your individual tasks for how they bring you closer to your career and performance goals. Will a task be considered in your evaluation and next promotion? Does said task contribute to your, your manager, or your unit's performance and goals? If not, drop it! In fact, strategic laziness is about looking at your to-do list with more clarity as to whether each task will support your performance and deliverables at the end of the day, week or year. When we start skimming down the to-do list using this approach we realise that we often spend time on work that will not bring us any direct benefit but simply adds to our workload and overwhelm for no concrete benefit. And just for the record, perfectionism falls amongst the prime targets of this approach!

So in summary, planning, prioritising, and clearly communicating are keys here but despite our best efforts - there will be rougher and less productive days. Those are normal and one positive element of the pandemic and lockdowns is that it has to a large extent contributed to raising awareness on the realities and challenges of working from home - especially for families.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catherine Leduc is a certified NLP& RSCI coach, speaker, and author of multiple?online courses?on Job Searching and Career Management and brings 17+ years of experience in senior consulting roles in strategic planning & marketing in the pharmaceutical industry. She has been the go-to person for job searching and career advice in her expat circles for over a decade before deciding to launch as a Career Coach. Her approach is focused on a strong strategic marketing background, extensive experience building and managing multi-disciplinary & multi-cultural teams across the World, and special attention to addressing mindset issues that often stand in the way of reaching our goals.

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