Hello everybody and welcome back to my channel.
In today's video, I'm going to be talking about a very, very hot topic and that is working
from home with kids.
How do you do it?
So if you're in a situation where you're wondering how the heck do you get work done when your
kids are around, then keep on watching.
If you just recently have started to work from home with your kids, give this video
like so I know so we can support each other.
So for a few years at my corporate job, I worked a few days a week at home and my kids
were there.
And then when I transitioned and started my own business, I am now working from home with
my kids even more than I used to.
So I've had to get really, really good and refine all of these skills to make sure that
I am the most productive.
And I really want to share these with you because I know they're going to make a huge
difference in your productivity working from home with kids.
All right?
My very first tip is to have a schedule.
If you do not have a schedule for you or your kids, good luck.
Nothing is going to happen.
You are not going to get anything done and you are going to be so incredibly frustrated.
So this is the number one most important thing.
All those other tips.
Yeah, they're great.
They're not going to help you unless you have a set defined a schedule for both you and
your work time and your children.
This means scheduling out breakfast, lunch, naps, play time, outdoor time activities,
movie time, screen time.
I know this is frustrating, but your kids cannot be going free for all with no schedule
or no plan.
Bust out an Excel spreadsheet or heck, just even in the calendar of your fault and block
out the different times on when your kids are going to be doing different things and
then in a different color or a different calendar, you can map out what you're going to be doing
for work during each one of those time blocks.
Since you're working from home and your kids are going to be there, you just need to realize
that your work schedule is not going to be a traditional nine to five because you cannot
just sit on a computer or whatever you're doing for eight hours and assume that the
kids are okay in the other room.
Kids do not work that way.
They are going to come in all the time.
So if you had a schedule of things that you're doing and then the kids are doing, it's going
to help make things go much smoother.
Kids love schedules, they love routines.
So by having this in place, it just makes them know what to expect and you know what
to expect.
So that way you're not frustrated with random bombardments or interruptions because you
are planning for that.
So for example, what I do for this is I wake up really early and I start working around
five 30 I know my kids are going to sleep until seven so I have one and a half hours
to work during that time.
Then we do breakfast together.
I'm not working during this time.
And then we schedule out different activities that they can do on their own and I can be
nearby but I can at least be getting some work done.
Then my kids, they are younger and they take naps, so I know from one to three for the
most part they are napping and I can get more work done during that time.
So then around the time when my kids wake up, my husband comes home, he can help out
with the kids for about an hour or take him to the gym.
So that's one to two more hours that I can get more work done.
Then from five to eight that's all family time.
We do dinner, we play, we have bedtime and they go to sleep.
So then I know really at eight o'clock that is when I can get more work done again.
So maybe from eight to nine 30 or eight to 10 it really just depends on your schedule.
So do you see if you're working from home with kids, you just have to accept that you're
not going to have a traditional working schedule, but instead you need to schedule your work
hours around the kids.
Now my next tip goes right along with this and this is to schedule the highest priority
work items during the time when the kids are going to be down.
So for me, I know that my kids are rarely wake up from five 30 to seven so if I have
a really important project, I will make sure that from five 30 to seven that is number
one on my list.
But if I instead waited for during the day time, when they're awake, they're around,
they're playing, they're interrupting me.
I would be incredibly frustrated and get nothing done on that big project because of all the
interruptions.
Now my kid's taken that from one to three.
Now in theory, if they sleep from one to three, but sometimes my daughter wakes up about an
hour into that.
So I really only have an hour that I can get stuff done.
So, even though in theory I have the full two hours, I should not schedule a two hour
high priority project during that time because there is a probability that I really only
have one hour.
So what I would do is I would take all of my different work blocks during the day and
I would order those from the lowest probability of being interrupted to highest probability
of being interrupted and do the same thing with your work tasks.
What are the highest priority things?
The most important that needs to be done to the lowest priority.
And then I would match each one of those to a time block so that way I can get stuff done.
So what I like to do for those work items that are very low priority, they're easy,
they don't require a lot of effort is I do those during times when I can be with the
kids.
Things like answering emails, I can be answering emails on the table while my kids are sitting
and doing puzzles or playing games or blocks.
That way.
If the kids come up to me and interrupt me, it's not a big deal cause it's just email.
So kind of plan your day accordingly.
Things that it's okay to be interrupted.
You can still work and do those near the kids.
Things that absolutely under no circumstance can you be interrupted.
Do those during a time when you know the kids will be sleeping away or not around.
Now my next tip is to communicate your work schedule with your team.
So if you're working remotely and you have a team that you work with, you need to let
them know when your work hours are.
It's really important that since you have your kids around that you're not going to
be working a traditional nine to five.
So they need to know that and that you may not be as responsive during those traditional
work hours.
So send a communication, send an email, let your boss know, Hey, these are the hours that
I'm going to be working.
If you're your own boss and you work for yourself, it's still important to communicate that with
your spouse or your loved ones, your family friends.
So they know when are your work hours and when not to bother you.
All right.
My next tip is to have a morning routine that doesn't involve kids.
It's really important to start the day on your own terms versus on your kids' terms.
If you sleep in until your kids wake you up, then you're constantly going to be in reaction
mode, getting the kids ready, getting them dressed, doing this, and you're not going
to be in the right headspace when it comes time to work.
So the way that I do this is I will wake up at 5:00 AM and then I will get ready, wash
my face, put on clothes.
That's really important.
Just put on regular clothes.
Get ready for the day because your productivity in PJ's is just like 50% but get ready for
the day so that way you feel refreshed, you feel like you are ready to go.
Depending on your family, you could get some work done during this time, but really starting
the day on your own terms is so important.
So please, please, please do this.
If you want to get so much more done during the day with your kids around and be incredibly
productive, then you have to have a morning routine.
All right?
My next tip for getting work done with kids around is to have a designated workspace.
So if you have an office with a monitor that you can connect your laptop to or whatever
it is, have a space that you can go and that is your workspace, that is your work zone
and you need to communicate this with your kids.
You need to let them know that this is where mom or dad gets work done just by having a
designated space will make it so much easier for you to get in the zone, to be productive
versus sitting on the couch, sitting on the bed doing it on the counter.
Whoa, Whoa.
Please don't do it on the counter when the kids are out versus working on your laptop,
on the counter, having that designated space, we'll just make it so much easier for you
and for your brain to know that it's work time.
Now, my next tip is to have special activities on hand that you can pull out in a time of
crisis or a time of need.
Let's say you have an emergency conference call that you have to hop on or something
happens at work and your kids are right there.
You can pull out some sort of activity or game, something that they are excited to do
that they can do independently.
These are special activities for crisis mode, but you can't have these every single day.
It might just be hard to continually have new, exciting things to keep the kids' interests,
but again, plan ahead and have these very, very special things done ahead of time and
also kind of anticipate how long these activities are going to take.
Is this an activity that will keep their interest for 15 minutes?
Is it going to be 30 minutes?
Is it going to be 60 minutes?
You need to have those and really kind of know ahead of time.
Even just put a sticky note on them that this is a 15 minute activity, so that way when
you pull it out in that time of need, you know around how much time this will save you.
So you can buy certain activities or games online or at the store or maybe you can put
on a very special movie or TV show or if you don't do time a lot, then you can pull out
the iPad and let them go at it.
Just have these things ready ahead of time so you can pull them out in your time of need.
All right, my next tip is to involve your kids.
So during those very low priority activities that you're doing, bring the kids and involve
them.
If you're sitting in your office, maybe let them sit next to you and color a picture or
tell the kids about your day and all the important things that you are doing for work so that
way they can understand what you're doing.
They don't feel that you aren't distracted and not paying attention to them, but they
can feel involved with what you're doing.
One thing that has really helped with my son is explaining the schedule ahead of time.
He really loves knowing what we're going to be doing the next day.
So as I'm putting him to bed, I will go through the different activities that we're going
to be doing during the day and he gets really excited so that way when the next day comes,
he's ready for it and he's asking to do each one of those things.
All right.
My next tip is to do not multitask.
Focus on one thing at a time.
If you want to be productive, working from home when your kids are around, you cannot
constantly be switching from doing emails to doing a big project, to checking social
media, to playing with your kids.
That is not going to be a good use of your time and at the end of the day you're going
to be so frustrated because you didn't get anything done.
So you need to focus on one thing at a time.
You're doing emails, you're doing that big project, you have a conference call and no
distractions whatsoever.
Phone in airplane mode, put your phone in the other room, turn off the TV, turn off
that movie that's playing in the background, turn all that off so you can just focus.
This will help increase your productivity so much and you will get a ton more done with
your kids by doing this.
So another thing with not multitasking is to make sure that you are paying attention
to the kids when you need to pay attention to them and you're paying attention to work.
When it's time to work, your kids are going to be very rowdy and disruptive if they feel
that your attention is being pulled to something else.
So if it's lunchtime, computer off work is off and just do lunch with your kids.
If it's play time and you have 30 minutes of play outside, just focus.
Don't have your phone, don't be checking emails.
Just focus on the kids for those 30 minutes.
So that way when you transition to more structured time for the kids, whether that's watching
a movie or doing homework or doing an activity, a puzzle, whatever, they can then focus on
that and feel that it's okay that they can do this independently because they've already
had a lot of time with you as the parent and again when you do transition to doing your
work and they're doing something else, you need to verbalize that and let them know that,
Hey, you guys are going to be doing this puzzle or this activity right now and I am going
to be working for 15 to 30 minutes and really set that boundary and that expectation that
you should not be interrupted.
One tip that I absolutely love when I'm focusing on one thing at a time, it's called the Pomodoro
technique and I talk about it all right here in this video, 20 tips to be more productive
at work, but basically what it is is you will set a timer for 25 minutes and for that 25
minutes you are in the zone and you are only working on that one thing and then you have
a five minute break and then you continue and you do another 25 minutes.
Now when you're working from home with kids, it will be harder to do these back to back
to back, but if you can at least get one 25-minute session in, that is going to be a huge increase
to your productivity.
All right, my next tip is to really stop right here and to set the expectation that things
are not going to go perfect and you need to be okay that despite doing all of these things,
it's not going to go as planned during your really important conference call and the kids
are supposed to have quiet time.
Inevitably one of the kids are going to come rushing in and totally interrupt and you're
going to be horrified, but you just have to accept that that is going to happen.
Or if throughout your day you were able to block out four different two hour chunks so
you could get eight hours of work done, but you only got four or five done.
You just need to accept that because kids are kids and they are little and they are
still learning and they need a lot of attention that you may not get done.
Everything that you need to.
Don't beat yourself up over it.
Don't get mad at the kids for it.
Just accept it and be okay that this is the situation when you're working at home with
kids.
Let's take another breath because you're going to need lots of them.
All right, and my very last tip is to get help.
This may not be possible for everyone, but if there are certain times when you really
need to have the kids go to someone else's house to have a family member take them or
to have them go to a babysitter for half a day, have your spouse come home, just get
the help that you need, especially if you have a big project or deadline coming up and
it just doesn't feel like you have enough time to get done what you need to.
You need to ask for help for other people.
So again, if you can do drop in babysitting for a few hours or you have someone a few
days a week who can watch your kids or if maybe your spouse or loved ones can watch
the kids after they get done with work, just whatever you do, recognize the need for help
and just ask.
That being said, if you do all of these tips, I can assure you that you will be more productive
when you are working from home with kids.
All right guys, and that is my video with my top tips on how to get more work done and
be more productive.
When you are working from home with kids, let me know in the comments below, what is
your favorite tip, what you're going to start doing and be sure to let us know your tips
down below so you can share the wealth with other working parents who are in the same
situation.
We are all in this together and we can use all the help that we can get.
If you liked this video, be sure to subscribe for more productivity tips and working from
home tips, working parent tips.
I got you.
That's all I have for today.
Good luck.
You got this.
Morgan believes in you.
Just remember that you can do this.
Okay?
Don't let the kids make you go insane.
Use these tips.
You'll be okay.
That's all I got.
I'll see you next time.