The Easy Way To Work At Home With Kids

The day has finally arrived! It’s the first day of summer and now you have to figure out how to work at home with the kids. After doing this for over ten years, the best piece of advice that I can give you is to try and keep your work life and personal life, separate. What I mean by that is to limit the time you schedule to work to certain hours and days. I have so much more peace and productivity than I did when I was less strict about when I tackled work tasks. It’s totally doable, IF YOU PLAN YOUR DAY. If you say you aren’t a planner, then I’m sorry – you are going to have to become one. It’s the only way you will survive the next 75 days. Here’s how I’ve mastered how to work at home with kids:

SCHEDULE DEDICATED WORK TIME

The first thing you need to do is figure out WHEN to work. If your children are better behaved in the morning (my boys can cohabitate peacefully under the same roof for approximately 2 hours immediately after waking, after that forget it), do your most important work then, sitting at your office desk, without distractions. Set expectations with anyone that might throw a wrench into your plans – your kids, friends, family, neighbors, etc.

Now on to more planning…..

SCHEDULED ACTIVITES

You must have a structured set of activities planned for your children to do both during and after you are finished working. Provide a daily calendar for your kids to reference, detail out the hourly activities (yes, hourly) and include the time that YOU are working. Give them options for activities to occupy their time during this scheduled work time.

CHANGE IT UP

Things will move along smoothly and according to the schedule, for a while, but there will come a time where they need a break from you, each other and the rigorous summer schedule. Be sure to arrange enough play dates (at their friend’s house, not yours), visits with their aunt or grandma and enroll them in summer camps to break up the monotony. You may even need to ask your spouse to pitch in more of their time at home (either taking days off or telecommute) to allow you to power through your workload over the next couple of months.

GET SOME HELP

At some point in your business, you may find that you are in the groove and things are exploding before your very eyes; this is when you need to sit down and really think about the possibility of childcare. If you enjoy working from home with your kids over the summer, then you can take it slow and hire someone for a few hours a week and see where it goes. Do what feels best for you and success (both in business and family) will follow.