Making the Most of the Kid’s School Hours When Working From Home
When school is back in session, your schedule may experience upset with the kids going back to school. Luckily, there are ways that you can make the most of back to school season and the extra time that you will suddenly have available to you. The sooner that you adjust your schedule, the sooner you will be able to truly make the most out of your kids going back to school.
Construct a Schedule
The first thing that you should do is to construct a schedule for utilizing the time when your children are in school. Their school schedule may seem long to your children, but the time will fly for you; especially when you are struggling to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. When you have a solid schedule to fall back on, your time management will go more smoothly.
Be Ready to Work
Get all of your non-working tasks completed before your children leave for school in the morning. This way, as soon as you sit down at your computer to work, you will be ready to go. This is the best way to capitalize on the time you have for working when your children are away. It will help you focus your attention on your work during this limited period of time so that you can get more done.
Take Breaks
While your time may be limited, make sure that you take breaks between projects so that you do not overwhelm yourself. One technique that is worth exploring is the Pomodoro Technique, which involves focused working for 25 minutes, broken up by 5-minute breaks. Every 4 pomodoro periods, you take a longer break away from your work. Use your work time and breaks to your best advantage to maximize productivity while you are working from home.
Ease in Slowly
There are bound to be some hectic feelings when you first ease back into working while your children are at school. Do not be afraid to ease in to your new work schedule slowly. Both you and your children will need some time to adjust to changes in schedules, especially during the first week or two of school.
Just take things slow and do not feel discouraged if you are not initially as productive as you would like. Just work to improve your productivity a little more each day so that you can capitalize on the time you have to work when your children are in school.