Toronto, ON (May 13, 2020) — Having the ability to work from home can provide a great alternative to commuting and working in an office for a number of different reason. If only there was a parents guide to help you. Whether it’s spending more time with your newborn baby or taking care of an elder relative. You might be able to make the transition to working from home on purpose in order to acquire more flexibility while still actively pursuing your professional goals and aspirations. However, you might find yourself suddenly working from home due to unexpected circumstances, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting so many of us across the world.
Being a full-time parent and full-time employee can certainly feel like a lot to manage at times. Whether it’s a last-minute deadline from your boss or your daughter’s first ballet recital. We get it, you have a lot going on! But how can you make sure to stay calm and focused while maintaining that ideal work-life balance?
As wonderful as it is to eliminate your commute, in addition, to spending way more time with your kids, remote working definitely has its own set of challenges that you’ll want to embrace and overcome in order to help keep your sanity and find (some sort of) comfortable work-life balance. Here is our parents guide to working from home.
Prep Your Family For Working From Home
What seems to happen for many parents who make the transition to working from home is the lines between work and home life, which used to be so clearly marked, tend to become blurred for everyone. Perhaps your children once thought you being home meant family-time, whereas now your home has also become your full-time office. It is important to communicate and establish time and space boundaries with your family when it comes to working in your new home-office environment.
Who knows you may even be able to get your kids involved in helping you work!
Pin Down Your New Morning Routine
Commuting straight from your bedroom to your home office while in your pyjamas might sound great to most, but unless you’ve trained yourself to focus and find “your groove”, in terms of your working from home productivity, then you may find it difficult to get anything done.
Mix in the hustle and bustle of your children, plus any additional family foot-traffic in your home, and you’ve got yourself a possible recipe for productivity disaster.
It’s no secret, having a daily morning routine helps—a lot! Efficient and habitual morning routines help business leaders around the world become more productive and successful in their everyday endeavours.
Here are a few tips to help you get into a better morning routine that helps you get more done:
- Wake up at the same time every day.
- Prepare for your workday ahead and try to envision your “perfect day”.
- Write out your morning routine and stick to it!
Find Your New Workflow
Having a dedicated workspace, away from any distractions, is always a huge plus. Ideally, your workspace should be closed off from the rest of your home with a door and a lock. As cute as it is when your child makes a cameo during your video conference, it’s best to try and prevent from happening.
You’ll need to set some ground rules for how your family should get in touch with you during your workday.
Set yourself up for success and avoid having your new workspace becoming a revolving door of personal and professional matters. If space is the issue and your children are in the same room as you then try to establish and maintain a level of separation when you’re in work-mode.
Often the most productive days start the day before.
Try and dedicate a few minutes of your day to creating your “Tomorrow To-Do’s,” by mapping out your key tasks and priorities for the following workday. That way you can get right down to business when you start the next day!
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!
If ever in doubt, communicate, communicate, communicate! Working from home success comes with reminding yourself that over-communicating is often the perfect amount of communication.
Context is also extremely important when it comes to your communications. It’s better to keep your team in the loop with any issues at home that are preventing you from being 100% productive. Rather than pretending that everything is under control while your work quality or output suffers.
Using an online shared document or calendar where you can log and update your available working hours can be extremely beneficial. Especially when it comes to keeping your team in the loop and all on the same page.
Finding Your Perfect Work-Life Balance
Finding and maintaining that perfect work-life balance while being a work-from-home parent isn’t as simple as it seems. However, you can do it. You may no longer have to commute to work every day, but be sure to stay in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing your priorities, productivity and scheduling! We hope you found this parents guide helpful.
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