Work life balance for work at home moms

How do you keep the work life balance intact and be sane as a work at home mom? Don't you beat up yourself.

It is the most common syndrome we face in this job. Though it may seem that you may have all the freedom to be flexible and do have the option of multi tasking whenever you wish, unless you are aware and focused it can be counter productive too.

Here I want to share an experience that I learned in a time management work shop.

We found that if we pour the small stuff first there was no room to fit the big pieces later.

So, we took another attempt. This time we put the big beads first and then there was enough room to fit the small beads in their gaps.

It is a great analogy that reflects in our every day life, in our work life balance issue. Our day is like the glass jar.

We have some important jobs to accomplish like the big beads and also a whole lot of small stuff like checking e mails, answer phone calls, social net working etc.

When I make a plan to put the important big pieces first before getting into small ones I manage to fit everything better.

The things that helped me:

Start with the big picture and prioritize what is important and in what order. For me they are

1. health

2. spouse and children

3. career/money

4 friends, extended family

5. home, hobby....

Therefore, I try to make my walking/exercise and meal planning for the family number one priority.

Ahead of time I make some plans about what fun things I want to do with my husband and each children and let them know. Of course spontaneity is wonderful but leaving it open too much back fires and insignificant things eat them up

Having a Family Meeting day where everyone participates with their calendars and also with their wishes and dreams , worked out great.

Staying focused

I use calendar, weekly log, daily to do list, a kitchen timer, organizer and training myself not to do it constantly and haphazardly have really made a difference.

Respect other person's work, time and concentration. When is it okay to be interrupted? This is a game in our family that we play with imaginary scenarios.. This also helps me in role modeling while I teach that to little ones. It is important for children to know when it is okay to call mom even if she is busy

Preparation

*Preparing snacks with kids ahead of time so that they know- helps.

*Having an art center and changing them according to the child’s interest, keeping it stimulating worked wonderfully. Little ones look forward to spending time here and keep busy.

*Interesting books, CDs at a listening center are also found to be productive when I took time to introduce them to children. This way they learn to cultivate the joy of spending time alone.

*Swapping baby sitting with other parents is an idea we all know –works great.

*Regular cleaning and picking up sessions to keep the environment clutter free was found to be an important part. I use the kitchen timer to make it fun and it helps to stay focused too.

* Having a Dream Journal is a wonderful idea which I came to learn in a recent blog. This concrete Dream book where you focus your dreams trains your subconscious to focus on the actions that will guide you to your goals and dreams.

*Training my self not to stretch work day beyond what is planned, is also an important thing to remember.

I found these things worked for me to keep my work life balance sanity as a work at home mom.

After

work life balance

try Work at home

Organize Time

or for more options please visit the Home Page. Book reviews:

In Stop Living Your Job,author A. Molloy showed how to focus on dreams, priority, people and financial freedom. I like the way she provided a template and some tools for organizing time, space, finance etc.

It’s about Time opened my eyes to six styles of procrastination and I learned a lot about my self.

Time Management by Julia Morgenstein is also a wonderful book that works from inside out and you understand why you are stuck some places and how to go beyond that.