Thread: Managing the home/work thing!

Hi all, I don't post as often as I'd like to here but drop in now and then - lack of time rather than inclination!

My business is real nappies, I have a busy website, another due to open shortly and a third in the planning (meanwhile am hoping someone works out how to clone me....!). We have 4 children who are all at primary school at the moment, which has helped enormously and made life a lot easier - I now do most of my work in the daytime rather than at night when they are in bed! Although I have a routine which more or less works, I still feel at times I haven't got it right, I think this might be the plague of the WAHM. You think it will be the ideal solution but it's not!

Generally speaking I do the school run, come home and put away breakfast mess, empty dishwasher, make a cup of tea, then get on with work fairly solidly until dashing off to the post office with my parcels at about 2pm and then getting home in time to walk to school and feel virtuous (although I have just driven right past school to go home!).

After school I am back in mummy mode until they are in bed, in theory at least

But what happens when it's the school holidays? Ah the joys.

Hubby still doesn't quite understand how I can walk past a cornflake on the floor. To him it's just a cornflake. To me it represents all the things that can and will sidetrack me throughout the day and end up with me having achieved very little. If I pick up the cornflake and take it to the bin, I'll probably realise the worktop needs a quick wipe, or perhaps I should run the hoover round, and oh look the washing machine has finished, and ah that's where that bit of homework went to....you know what I mean!

The thing I am worst at is reminding myself that I DO work! Just because I don't work outside of the house, I do have a business, I do lots of work, I have very little free time in the school day - and actually working from home can get rather lonely if the only conversation you get is with your cranky old age cat who keeps forgetting you've fed him already

I wouldn't change it though.

I also work from home and Im in awe of how organized you are!!

I am so easily distracted, I too have a cranky cat that forgets he is fed and a mad fool of a dog that thinks he is to be walked every 4 minutes. I have 4 children and would love to say I'm in mummy mode when they are home but alas I would be fibbing. I am also disabled so by the time they come home I'm shattered and just want to sleep!!

Yet I need to work from home so that I feel I'm doing something to help. Oh the joys of being a woman.

(sorry that was a complete an utter ramble lol)

I am well impressed with how you manage it. Your doing great.

I keep thinking I'd love to work from home but after 7 years of being a FT Mum I don't think I would have the discipline yet.

Sasha

superwoman or what... you sound very on the ball & organised! You are the first person I have seen on here from Oxfordshire..where are you?

Hiya,
I know just what you mean! I still have 1 preschooler so still limited to what I can do in the day, and by the time the kids are in bed I'm usually too tired to do anything constructive! I'm hoping it'll getting slightly easier as they get older, last year was difficult as I was constantly running between playschool and school with a 7 and 4 year old and a toddler usually strapped to my back!

Saying that, I do really like being self employed and doing my own thing, and get loads of job satisfaction, especially selling things I have made myself.

I think you sound very organised! I tend to let things slide a bit in the holidays, and pick up when they go back to school.

It's tough but i bet you wouldn't have it any other way. I run a business at home with three at school and an 11 month old at home. But like the others i enjoy it!

I so know what you mean! I barely have time to draw breath during the morning then from when I pick E up at lunchtime to the evening, I am running around doing things with her.

One of the best things I ever did though was to get the RM to come and pick up the post - we don't even have to weigh each item as it is done with PPI and bunged in a bag and the whole bag weighed - so much easier.

Axx

It was nice to know that

Plushpants i could have wrote that post myself! lol
My dh and i had a talk last night as it has been getting me down as i gave up work last year to concentrate on the business and my family but struggle to find that happy work/life balance sometimes lol...although i wouldnt change it for the world i love being a wahm

Ketty x

Women after my own heart!

I also work at home and have done for over two years ad I have to me super-organised - I get up early, and do anything in the kitchen that needs doing, including washing etc, get showered and sorted then Kieran is up - he has breakfast while I have a cuppa and go through my diary and do a to-list and then its onto the pc, or we go out to bookings (they are all at toddler groups, soft play centres etc). I shop wekly (online!) and have it delivered and am a huge fan of my slow cooker because i can "make" tea earlier on and just let it go! We still fit in time for walks out etc and on an evening after his bath and bed I'm back online and on the ohone, answering emails, speaking to my team etc.

I ahve to be super-organised and a bit blinkered because if I see something else that "needs" doing - Im gone lol! I now set aside certain times on certain days to do thingslike change all the beds, clean the fridge and hat not but because I do a load every moning I can kep on top of it.

And you know what....... I wouldn't change it for the world!!! I love working from home and being with kieran!