Parents working from home: How to balance the family-life and work-life

Working parents find it difficult to balance family-life and work-life in this hectic world and the same applies to parents working from home. Raising little ones is a very demanding job and requires a lot of attention. Of course, the same can be said about a career.

Working from home could be a solution that will fulfill the demands of both parenthood and your career. If you successfully find the balance between the two, then you will find content in this sweet equilibrium.

However, the line that you can draw easily between your personal life and work when you leave for office every day is missing when you start working from home. Therefore, it is up to you to draw that line.

Believe it or not, this sweet equilibrium is achievable but it’s up to you to put in some effort. Although working from home allows for a lot of family time, you will surely be faced with a few work-life balance issues.

To balance between work-life and family-life on a day-to-day basis, parents must make thoroughly thought out choices.

Here are just a few areas are the hotbeds of potential conflict that such parents need to overcome:

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Establishing some ground rules.

If you are working from home, make sure you have ground rules for everyone at home. This will apply to your children and all the other people living under the same roof.

You have to make it clear to all at home what merits as interruption while you are working. While kids tend to forget these rules, the adults feel that it does not apply to them. It is important that you make the rules clear to all.

However, the ground rules for working from home does not stop there. The biggest distraction will be yourself. Always remember that it takes self-discipline to be successful at working from home, so you have to establish some ground rules that also apply to you.

Quality versus quantity.

Let’s focus on quality versus quantity based on the view of our own life. This is very much like a trade-off that people experience most of the time. Working at home will perhaps help you balance your responsibilities better if you mindfully make the choices.

As a parent working from home, you will be able to spend a greater period of time with your child than if you were working from an office. However, actually being present in a situation does not mean that you are dedicating yourself to your child.

A good idea would be to take frequent, scheduled breaks from work to spend time with your child. When you have to work, lock yourself in a quiet room and focus solely on the task at hand. Avoid any type of multitasking – that will only mean you’re giving both your child and your work half the attention that they deserve.

Work from home parents have to multitask most of the times, but they must learn to multitask smartly. A few tools might come in handy in this case. Canva is such a tool which can help one create designs in a jiffy. Be it an infographic or a presentation, with Canva you can really get it done quickly so that you have more time to spend with your child. The tool offers a great store of templates and is a cakewalk to use.

Babies and conference calls may collide with one another. It could be a good idea to consider having another adult in the home if you know that there’s an important meeting scheduled.

Plan out your family schedule and kids activities.

Generally, when kids are small, parents have more involvement in their lives. This is an advantage for working parents as they can carve out a little time from their schedule to play and spend time with their kids. But as the children grow up, constraints come from both the parents and children. Parents can’t carve out the schedule for their children nor can the children do the same for the parents.

As seen in many cases, the burden usually falls on the work-from-home parents to maintain the schedule for the children and to work around the daily house chores. Such parents can be seen juggling duties like making phone calls, answering emails and taking care of their children. While this is manageable for some parents, for others it can create a lot of issues.

A way has to be developed so that the parents who work from home do not crush under the pressure.

Creating a weekly schedule that includes both family activities and work commitments, you will be able to manage your time more efficiently. Make sure that you take at least one full day off per week and plan a family activity so you can really enjoy your children.

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