8 Effective Productivity Tips for Work-at-Home Parents
Due to COVID-19, many working parents were compelled to work from home.
And because they’re not used to such a work environment, being productive is becoming a challenge.
If you are one of those parents who juggles work and family, here are eight tips that you can apply:
1. Prepare a schedule
Time management is a massive issue for everyone, but even more so for work at home parents.
When there’s so much going on at home, it can be so easy to find yourself wondering how the time passed you by without you knowing. It’s also difficult to coordinate activities between the members of your household.
To bring back more stability in your work-from-home life, you should consider preparing a schedule for yourself.
If you have a spouse or a partner living with you, you should coordinate your plan with them. That way, there is an understanding between you and your partner of what’s going on in your life.
A schedule will help make you feel less like you’re improvising your life and more in control of everything, which is always a lovely idea.
2. Batching method
Another time management solution that you can do aside from creating a schedule would be the batching method.
The batching method’s mode of operation is accessible. All you need to do is to do similar tasks in the same batch at the same time.
One example would be spending 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM responding to all sorts of messages, from emails to texts and online messages. You can then spend 10:30 AM to 12 PM doing chores related to childcare.
The batching method allows your mind to not be as tired after each task because the mindset shift isn’t erratic. You also feel less like you’re all over the place.
3. Prioritize hard tasks
When you have the most energy, that’s the time when you should be doing the more difficult tasks. If you put off these tasks later on in the day, you won’t have enough energy to do the job efficiently and as high-quality as you can.
That’s why you should be prioritizing the demanding tasks that you have as early as possible.
Even if you dedicate most of the day to that challenging task, knowing that you could cross off a primary goal on the list is rewarding. For each workday, try to set which job is a priority and then do that first before anything else.
4. Establish a work area
Not everyone will have space in their house that they can dedicate for work. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t establish a makeshift work area someplace in your home.
When you have a dedicated space for working, you can focus because your mind will associate that space with work.
When you’re establishing a work area, make sure that you don’t use places of leisure, like the couch and the bed, your work area. Otherwise, you might have a more challenging time focusing on relaxing or working when mixing up the two.
Even if you only have a table and chair in one corner of the room, that could be your work area. Make sure that you also notify the people in your house that when you’re in your work area, that means you’re working.
5. Define the lines
One of the biggest challenges of working from home is that the lines between home life and work life are blurred. If you stick to winging it, you’re going to make it harder for yourself to balance both of them.
For your sake, you should create boundaries between your work life and your home life.
When it’s time to log off, make sure that you do and that you don’t answer work queries or do any tasks related to work when you’re supposed to be off the job. Sticking to this boundary will allow you to have both a healthier work and home life.
6. Use apps and tools
If you want to be as productive as possible while working from home, you should automate some of your tasks.
There are plenty of tools that you can use to make it easier for you to do certain things. Whether it’s for work or for managing your home, there are productivity apps out there that can help.
For example, there are plenty of task list apps that help you keep track of all the things you need to do. If you want to make sure that you’ve finished all the tasks, having a to-do list on your phone or device might be a big help for you.
7. Have a stop time
Some of us have a hard time starting the work, and some have a tough time stopping the work. It’s even more apparent in parents working from home.
It becomes much harder to stop working, especially when you’re in the zone. However, that’s not a healthy habit for you to keep doing. That’s why you should make sure to have a dedicated stop time.
A stop time should be a point in the day when, no matter what, you’re not going to work the rest of the day. The stop time is going to be a crucial part of your time management routine.
8. Have a support network
We at Maid Sailors Hoboken Cleaning Service believe that you don’t have to shoulder everything yourself.
Many parents are too hard on themselves when it comes to combining household workload and actual work tasks. Too many parents think that if they aren’t doing everything at home and work, they believe they’re not good parents.
This idea is an absolute falsehood.
Everyone deserves to have a support network, even parents. That’s why if you feel like you need help, don’t hesitate to ask for it.
There are many ways you can get the help that you need. You can ask family and friends to help you take care of the kids when you’re away. You can hire professional services to help clean your home once in a while. When you feel that you need help, give yourself the rest you need, and seek your help.
Conclusion
Working from home as a parent is a challenge, especially at the start. Please don’t beat yourself up over it for too long.
You’re going to be stumbling around at first. But eventually, you can start creating a healthier work-from-home habit with the help of these productivity tips.
A healthier work-from-home situation will be useful not only for you but also for your work and home life together.
