Work At Home Mums (WAHM) are often painted in a picture of having a very easy, laid -back lifestyle where you can work when you want around your kids in the luxury of your own home.
A WAHM doesn’t have to battle the traffic, deal with standard work place issues and rush home to make dinner every night. You have all day to clean the house, play with the kids, make dinner so it is ready for when hubby gets home and slot in some work hours.
It all sounds great in theory. Let me tell you how a good day of a WAHM goes in my little world.
The Work At Home Mum Lifestyle…
Since school when back I have a nice little routine now, which is working really, really, well.
For so long I tried to make myself get up at 5am in the morning to get a head start on the day.
I used to do it, and loved getting up at that time but for some reason my body these days just says no.
I’m sure I can hear it saying:
“You bloody crazy woman, your son woke you up EVERY morning at 5am as well as all through the night for TWO years, remember?”
It. was. torture.
And, now he is finally sleeping through the night and waking up at a reasonable time in the morning you want to get up when you don’t have too?
Idiot, idiot, idiot!!!”
So, now I roll over and snuggle in with my babies as they always come and get into bed with me at some point during the night and I love waking up to their little faces.
At 7am, we get up and get ready for school and daycare, most days I get out of the house within 45 minutes, drop my littlest to daycare and go to the gym.
My daughter goes into creche and I have 30 – 45 minutes to exercise.
This time is otherwise redundant, spent at home waiting to leave and exercise is really, the make or break of me.
Once I have done school drop off I get busy.
Pretty much from 9am – 3pm I am in a serious work coma.
Sometimes I don’t even answer my husbands ‘I have nothing to say but I am calling you anyway’ phone calls.
I reckon I do about 4 days worth of work in this 6 hours.
First, I review where my awesome team is at, checking the production and spreadsheets of the jobs we have, checking that clients have been responded to, checking if payments have come in and liaising with Belinda Owen, who is my amazing Project Coordinator on what she needs me to do.
Then I hit the emails and respond to the urgent ones, or any emails that take a second to reply to so I can file them away.
In this time I also sort out any super urgent things like bugs in my landing pages, broken links, FB ads that aren’t working etc.
Once I have all the urgent stuff sorted I continue with my strategy of growing the business which involves – Facebook ads, email funnels, content writing, designing landing pages, PR + media and guest blogging.
Before I know it, it is 3pm and I am rushing to pick up my kiddies, I’m usually that mum running in the gate just as the bell rings!! Or if I have a moment spare I’m replying to emails or PMs.
We then go to swimming lessons or do errands. Sometimes I leave my littlest in daycare and my daughter and I just go by ourselves to have some mummy and me time.
I try to stay offline until after dinner but….. I haven’t really got that down pat yet. I am a crack work alcoholic.
Depending on how I feel I’ll work from around 7.30 – 9.30pm and then sign off.
Throw in the usual dinner prep, kids homework and story telling and then the fun bed time routine that I am sure all Mums are far too familiar with, and we have a day.
Phew! I am tired just writing about it!
Add into this ‘perfect’ day a few curve balls like a sick child or 2, an accident at daycare (yup, just last week my son decided to face-plant a rock and it was a trip to the doctors) and you have a day that has all of a sudden turned rather pear shaped. And this happens.
But the difference between ‘working for the boss’ and working for yourself is that when these curve balls and distractions happen, the work doesn’t. So, this time has to be made up the next day. And that is ok, because that is called taking the good with the bad. If you are choosing to do it for the simpler life, then you may find that you can’t meet said expectations. It’s important to remember the difference, you are doing this for the better life, not the simpler life.
It is all about being organised and having good notes and good systems in place. If you have bad systems and you are the one who has post-it notes all over the place, then you may find the work from home scene around the kids a little more challenging than it has to be. If that works for you though, then that is all good too. But the point being is….
BE ORGANISED!
Working from home is a life choice with a new set of challenges. When you choose to be a Work At Home Mum, it’s not always going to be easy, but I can guarantee you, you won’t regret it. You need a routine and set working hours that fit in with your family. After all, that is what you are doing it for.
