7 things they won’t tell you about working from home

Working from home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Are you an overwhelmed, work-from-home mom? Yeah, me too.

Working from home

Here is what I have learned, momma; and hopefully, it will help you too. First, we need to take advantage of the small pockets of time; second, have your routines mapped out; and lastly, use workflows to finally get rid of decision fatigue.

 Time management

• Managing your time is imperative.
  1. No more lounging around.
     • As a work from home mom, with two kids who are constantly needing something from me, there is so no room for wasting time. Gone are the days of binge watching NCIS on USA during a quiet weekend afternoon. When your why is big enough, these sacrifices will not seem nearly as difficult.
  2. Find the pockets of time.
     • If the kids are keeping themselves busy, then I am immediately hopping on the laptop to get some work done. Swim lessons? Yes please! We are in them aaaallll summer long and this momma is up in the bleachers working away on her phone while the kids are occupied.
  3. The Pomodoro technique has become my lifesaver.
     • By keeping myself to just 25 minutes for a certain task this has become a game changer in getting things done. I know that I will never find an entire afternoon – or even a large 2-3 hour block of time to get everything done all at once – so for me these 25 minute windows are priceless.
     • I don’t know about you but I am done reading productivity books by guys saying I need to get up at 5 am and do focused deep work for 4 hours. Hmmm….geee…. great idea, except the baby was up from 2-3 feeding, and the older one needs to be taken to school at 8….so there goes my 4 hour block of focused work. Sorry, but it doesn’t work for this working momma.

     • The Pomodoro technique is the ticket to fitting in small pockets of work into my crazy schedule. Try it, I know you will love it too.
• Your lists need lists
  • 4. My lists have lists.
    • And they are never ending. I have given up on thinking that I might ever actually be able to catch up on everything. Just like the laundry and dishes, blogging work will never be done. Instead I use my favorite PM tool to tell me what the next steps are, and I jump right in.
    • Without my checklists in Trello I would be so lost when it came time to actually sit and work. Before creating these lists I would spend 20 minutes trying to remember where I was and what I was supposed to be doing next. Now I just check my lists and do what is next. #lifesaver

• Routines
  • 5. This lesson I took straight from my favorite home management guru, FlyLady.
    • Having daily routines takes the guess work out of knowing what I should be doing each day. When I log into Pinterest, I do not mindlessly scroll my smart feed. Instead I have a clear-cut, straightforward routine that I follow each time. Every Time.
  • 6. Cut the decision fatigue.
    •  Just like Steve Jobs and his black turtleneck, taking out the need to constantly make decisions not only makes us more efficient, but it also makes us more creative – as we do not waste what little brain power we have on the little things. Because, you know, mom brain.
    • As mentioned above, my lists have lists. When it is time to work, I do not waste valuable time trying to decide what needs to be done. I spend at least an hour every Sunday mapping out exactly what needs to be done and then in what order. This way, when it is time to work I simply check my favorite, flavor-of-the-day PM tool (Trello, Asana, sticky notes) and get to work.
• Workflows 
  • 7. Just like my daily routines, my workflows take the guess work out of my weekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks. Everything has a system and a process, this is your workflow.
    • And just like my routines, and my to do list, my workflow is mapped out in Trello of course! This way when it comes time to optimize my old blog posts I am not trying to rack my brain to remember what I learned in that SEO course I took months ago.
    • Instead, I have a checklist that I follow every time.