How to Successfully Work From Home With Young Children at Home

Failure, I have become a complete failure as a “work from home” mom this past month.  This is not to say that I was a success before.   But at least I had a system that seemed to work.

Long before I officially worked from home, I had to take patient phone calls via beeper when not at the office.   At least, I had a little leeway in regard to handing off the children and getting into a quieter environment when my husband was around.

Even before I had children, I was amazed to discover some of the patient’s expectations.  “You sounded like you were asleep!” one patient exclaimed clearly annoyed that I should be sleeping in the middle of the night while taking beeper call.

Only now, I can chuckle about another phone call I took when my husband was abroad working.   The kids were in the bath when the call came through. Fortunately, it was a mother who was one of my patients (as opposed to a partner’s patient).  I was done giving advice but the mom just needed a little more reassurance. We continued to chat.  I took the kids out of the bath but my toddler quickly scampered away without allowing me to dress her.  She sat on the floor (naked) and started reading her books, a 20-30 minute distraction.  As I stopped paying attention, I heard screams from my son, “Mom, mom she pooped on the floor.”  The phone call abruptly ended.

But, I digressed.  I was talking about working from home with children at home.  Last weekend, I wanted to shout:  “No Respect! My home office gets no respect!”  This was amidst the constant screaming and tantrums that resonated from the downstairs of our home.  And when my son came and knocked on the door of “my office” one too many times, I had a meltdown.  This time mama needed a time out.   It was then that I had to take a serious look at why I was failing.

Why had it fallen apart now?  My toddler was no longer immune to my being supposedly “gone”.  If she wanted to, she could just walk into my office at will.  Having a childcare provider or my husband there would not stop her.  My son on the other hand has gotten better about interrupting.  He knows to only to disturb me “If there is a fire!”

I polled some other mums.  The response was the same.  It was tough to work from home with small children at home.  One theme was common. They all had to “lock” themselves in their offices. This had been my trick as well.

One mom checked herself into a hotel for 4 days to work.   She had a “stay-cation” for work, or a “work-cation”!  I loved that she shared this with my husband.  Now he would know that it wasn’t just me.  This story prompted me to remember reading about Angelina Jolie checking into a hotel for a month to prepare for a movie role.  You no longer have to be a prominent star to have a “work-cation”.  Don’t tempt me.

Another 9 year veteran work from home mom told the story of how her kids would bang on the door screaming: “Let me in!”  She would have to mute her conference calls and cross her fingers that they wouldn’t scream when she was talking off mute.  She also tells of once being on a call “while my two year old dragged my laptop across the floor by the mouse”.  It was stressful for her as well.

So I was not alone in my endeavors to work from home.  After that stressful weekend day, I decided to attempt working from the Wi-Fi hot spots around town.  For my first attempt, I brought my noise canceling headphones and was doing well until a mother came in with her screaming toddler.  All I could think of was: “What are the chances? What are the chances?”

The second spot, another coffee shop was not bad.  Unfortunately, the toilet was through the smoking floor which is encased in glass, cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze.  And the third attempt left me trying to connect to the internet for 45 minutes.  I found the internet connections to be slow at all these hot spots which was as frustrating as the children’s screams were.

I am a visual learner.  Changing work stations all the time makes it harder for me to get back into work mode and makes me less productive.  Subsequently, I have returned to working from home for now.

Here are my top three tips which to make working from home successful most of the time.

1.    Set up a distinct office space

2.    Set your hours and stick to them

3.    Limit distractions

Ideally,  a home office would be in a completely separate room.  Even more ideal would be to have  a completely separate entrance and a bathroom.  One can dream.  Perfect for expats would be to utilize the otherwise small maid’s quarters that are usually separate from the main villa.  But even if you have to be in the bedroom, make it your space and make it pleasant.  Think spa like.  A painting or candle wouldn’t hurt.

Keep your work space tidy and organized.  I have two piles of “stuff”: one pile of long term projects organized in folders and a small pile of “short term” projects that I am working on at the moment.

I worked from our bedroom for 11 months.  The hardest was when I wanted to start work when my husband was still asleep at 5 am.  He ultimately slept through it.  I disconnected the printer cable and printed documents only after he woke.

Setting hours is incredibly important.  The hours which worked best for me were around sleep times.  The key was to start when my children were still asleep.  Over the summer when both children were home, I used to work from 5am- 10 am. As they didn’t wake until 8 am, they didn’t miss me for the first couple hours.  I felt like I had accomplished what I need to for the day and then I could truly enjoy the remainder of the day.

The other time that worked was to start work at 1 pm after my daughter was down for a nap and my son was still at school.  I would then work through until 4 pm only missing an hour when my daughter was awake.

Communicate your hours to friends and colleagues.  It was easy for my friends to assume I was available all the time.  I solved this by making separate times available for socializing.  But, isn’t it a luxury of working from home to be able to change your schedule at will so that you can go on that school field trip etc.  It is all about balance.

And lastly, limit distractions.  Don’t answer the home phone if you don’t use it for business.  Give your childcare provider clear instructions on when if ever she is to interrupt.  Turn off the Facebook and the non-work email.  There are programs which will block these for you for a set period of time. I also pack a cooler bag with all my snacks, food and water for the day just like I would if I were working outside of the home.

My noise cancelling headphones are a saving grace.   At the moment, I am listening to Cassandra Wilson’s jazz album “Silver Pony”.  Music has helped me get out of writer’s block more than once and I am not distracted by normal house sounds.  They unfortunately do not block out toddlers screams.  If only…

Love to hear your tips on working at home with young children around.