My love-hate relationship with working from home
As a budding entrepreneur and mum of 2 infants
After 20 years of going to an office almost every day, there is nothing I love more than working from home.
When I decided to quit my 9-5 and embark on this journey of entrepreneurship, my wonderful husband got the study ready in our home.
I have a wonderful work space, that faces a window. And a table that goes up and down so I have the choice to stand and work; and I have an ergonomic chair.
I never thought I would stand and work, but I do! And when I teach online, I do my sessions standing up, I feel better energy.
It’s simple but I love it.
I wake up, get the kids ready for school and drop them off.
I come home, have a coffee in my garden and then head up to my office to get on with the day.
The goal is to finish majority of my work before my son comes home around 1:30pm.
Of course, this never happens.
And this is when I start not loving working from home.
Here are the challenges I face working from home, and how I am trying my best to navigate them.
My kids don’t yet understand.
My kids are 6 and 4. They think, since I am home, I must play with them.
They do not yet understand why I am home and ‘working’, and why I cannot play with them all the time.
How I am navigating this:
I have started telling my 6 year old daughter what I am doing and showing her pictures of the AI workshops I am running and why I am running them. She kind of gets it, but still doesn’t get why I am working “all the time”.
She also yet doesn’t quite understand why we need to work to earn money. However, I think she is not far from understanding this.
My 4 year old son does not understand at all, obviously, and often gets upset when I don’t play with him on demand.
Like at 5am this morning when I got up early to get some work done, while they were *meant* to be sleeping.
When they come home from school, I spend 15-20 minutes with them, uninterrupted. No phone, no computer. This helps, as they feel they have seen me and don’t feel the need to get my attention for a little while.
There are no boundaries.
Despite explaining, and trying my best to be present with them periodically while at home, my kids don’t hesitate to barge into my office, whether it’s to “tell me something”, “ask me a question” or “get a cuddle”.
How can I deny any of those requests?
So I entertain them. And I love it.
But one request becomes 10 and the next thing I know, the entire afternoon has passed me by.
Working during their bath and bed time is a strict no from my end, unless absolutely necessary.
However, I’m building a business and work needs to go on, so I end up working after they have gone to bed.
What I am doing to enforce boundaries:
Threatening to leave the house to work if they don’t let me.
Threatening that I will have to go back to “big office” if they don’t let me work from home.
It’s a terrible way I know, but it does work - most of the time. They do not want me to not be around.
If there is a better way, please tell me, I am open to all suggestions!
I see my kids a lot.
This is the best thing about being a digital entrepreneur, but also the worst.
Seeing my kids a lot means I get very little quiet time or adult time, which means on bad days, I have very little patience that I completely lose when I am with them.
What I am doing to minimize this:
When I have deadlines and a large amount of work to get done, I leave the house and go to a cafe.
It’s the only way for me to get my work done, whilst not losing my sh*t.
There are no fixed working hours.
I work whenever I can, from wherever I can.
I don’t want to go back to a 9-5, and business does not care how you are feeling or if you haven’t had time to do the work. You just have to get on with it.
That’s just the way it is.
What I am doing:
I have embraced the haphazardness of working from home with 2 small kids. I have accepted that it’s up to me how I manage my time and I am lucky I have the luxury to manage it!
So I must manage it well, and look after myself so I don’t take out accumulated frustrations on my family.
It is isolating.
Whilst you are seeing your kids a lot as you work from home, your interaction with adults - beyond the parents you meet at drop off - is limited.
This can keep you in your own head a lot.
You end up building stories in your monkey mind and you can often end up making mountains of mole hills.
The value of water-cooler chats in an office is underrated and only understood when you don’t have them any more.
What I am doing:
I have started going to networking events where I’ve been meeting some wonderful people. And also making more of an effort seeing close friends when I can.
This is super helpful for me and also I think for my husband’s sanity, so I don’t have verbal diarrhea when I see him 😂 See, his day is the opposite of mine. He has had enough adult talk after a day at the office!
Despite all of the above, I would not have it any other way.
No amount of using AI cuts down the amount of time you need to set the foundations of your business, as so much of it is sitting in your head.
Shifting my mindset to gratitude for the opportunity to have a go at building my dream work, and that I “get” to do this has really helped me keep perspective.
Do you work from home? What are your challenges?
Do comment here, I’d love to know!
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Have a wonderful weekend,
Abha
I have a regular job but also mostly from home. Spending days on calls and trying to balance household and work. And thanks for pointing out, how lonely it’s getting sometimes. That really resonates a lot with me now! Good points on how to get out of it 🙂