As it becomes more and more difficult in the present economy for parents to afford daycare costs, many mothers (and fathers) are choosing to work from home while caring for their children. This allows the parent to be present for the milestones of a child's growing years and actively involved in their day-to-day activities, as well as saving the costs of having an outside job (such as commuting, lunches, uniforms/dry cleaning, etc). Though the advantages are many, there are also challenges which must be overcome in order for parents to be successful professionally while nurturing, teaching, and providing for their children simultaneously. These 10 lifestyle changes will help you to prioritize your schedule and encourage success in both work and parenting:
If you have toddlers or preschool age children, keep a laundry basket filled with favorite toys and bring it out only during your work time. Blocks, books, and puzzles are great! Your children will look forward to the special time of day when they are allowed to play with their favorite toys and you can accomplish tasks in the same room with them while they play. Be sure to put the basket out of sight and reach when the business-related task is over to maintain the new and exciting allure of these toys. You will be tempted to place your preschooler in front of educational television and your older child with your extra laptop or smartphone, but resist the urge! Yes, they will be quiet and engrossed in the entertainment but it is a disservice to them and can very well have detrimental effects on their physical and mental development. Depending on age, you could allow 30 minutes - 1 hour of TV or tech gadget use per day per child, and planning those minutes to occur during your most intensely productive work sessions can be helpful.
There may be a few businesses where upfront fees may be required like activation fees or membership fees, for example, network marketing companies. This is even true for online businesses involving high ticket products. The best thing to do would be to simply avoid these businesses and select something that involves no cost or very low cost to begin with. This will ensure that there is minimum risk involved in the business for you. Blogging is one of the businesses that you can start free of cost if you choose a free platform for setting up the blog. Another great free business to consider is affiliate marketing. To sum it up, a good Christian home business idea does not have to cost a fortune and can be done on a shoe string budget. These businesses are legitimate and can provide you a good amount of profit if you work hard with it.
If you already cook with creative variety and serve only the most nutritious meals without stress or fatigue, skip this tip. If, however, meal preparation is still overwhelming and takeout is becoming more and more of a regular option while you dream of the gourmet meals you will prepare in the future, here is the solution: Accept that it is completely okay for you to serve the same basic "family favorite" menu every single week. These are the meals you know your children love (nutritious, yes) and you have cooked them a million times so you do not have to spend a lot of brainpower preparing it. If there are 14 family favorites which are fairly quick and not terribly intensive to make, create a rotating two week menu. If you only have seven, repeat the same week over and over. Now that you have made your list of meals, pick a day to serve each one (Fridays are homemade pizzas at my house, for example. Mondays every-other-week: blackened chicken pasta with a salad. Sunday nights might include popcorn, apples, and cheese. You get the idea.) Now, this will take a few minutes, but you only have to do this once! List the ingredients needed for each week's meals (either on paper or a spreadsheet where you can easily reorganize or even a grocery list app on your phone). Reorganize the list by the item's location in your favorite supermarket (canned goods, meats, produce, etc.) Now, you have your weekly grocery list! Make copies to take with you to the grocery store to mark off as you fill your basket. Stop stressing and buy the same things over and over! If you want to cook something different and fun on the weekend or once a week, leave space to write in a new recipe's ingredients and designate a day to prepare it. Adapt this to work for you and your lifestyle.
The truth is that quality and quantity of time are important with your children. It is easy to forget that just because the children are always with you doesn't mean you are actually with them. When your mind is focused on work and you do not drive away from a literal office building, it can be even more difficult to put work aside and give your children your undivided attention. It is critical that you find a way to connect with them! Try setting a timer for 30 minutes a few times a day to look your child in the eye as he or she talks to you and play with him or her or accomplish something fun together. Also, after dinner is over and the kitchen is clean, spend time reading with your children and showing them affection. They need you, and not just your physical presence, but your mental and emotional presence as well. Giving them your full attention during specifically scheduled times will help you not to break the "appointment" but it will also help your children not to be as needy during the times when you must focus on your professional tasks. They will come to relish and excitedly anticipate their one-on-one daily times with you (and you will be amazed at how connected you will feel to them and how it will bless your own heart!)
You probably already know what they are without much introspection, but take a few minutes anyway and list the activities you tend to use as diversions from your responsibilities. Maybe it is a social network or television channel or... you get the idea. Whatever it is that helps you procrastinate needs to be contained in a specific time period and then put away for the day. For example, you can have your cup of coffee in the morning while you spend 30 minutes of computer time on personal interests and then check back in with e-mail for 15 minutes after lunch. The important thing is that you have a plan and stick to it so that the diversions stop eating the time you could be connecting with your children and/or profiting in your job. Also, think through your routine and find ways to make it more streamlined: Do your quick wipe of the sink and brushing of the toilet as soon as you finish your getting ready routine in the morning and don't go back in there until necessary. Clean up after your meal before you leave the kitchen. Have your older children bring their dirty laundry and put it in the washing machine instead of trekking to each room to do it yourself. Find ways to save steps and, subsequently, conserve energy and time. You will find you get better and better at this as you begin to practice it.
For the majority of moms I know, this is the most difficult appointment to keep, but it is the most important one. The stresses of work and parenting and life in general take their toll on your mind, body, and spirit. You absolutely must plan to rest! Exercise daily. (This can be done with your children running around in your yard. Be creative and think outside the box). Take a soothing bath after the kids are in the bed. Spend a few minutes reading at bedtime instead of watching television as it helps your body to relax and your sleep to be more restful. Connect with your spouse and invest in your relationship. Go to bed at a reasonable time instead of staying up late. Set aside Saturday (or at least most of it) as a day for family fun, a day when your children know you will not be working at your desk and making phone calls all day. You need it, and they need it. Sundays are a day of rest in our family. We go to church to worship and spend the day simply being together. Take time to nurture your spirit and the benefits will astound you. Resting is not being lazy. It is a much-needed reprieve from the daily grind and it will actually energize and fuel your productivity and success.
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If you have toddlers or preschool age children, keep a laundry basket filled with favorite toys and bring it out only during your work time. Blocks, books, and puzzles are great! Your children will look forward to the special time of day when they are allowed to play with their favorite toys and you can accomplish tasks in the same room with them while they play. Be sure to put the basket out of sight and reach when the business-related task is over to maintain the new and exciting allure of these toys. You will be tempted to place your preschooler in front of educational television and your older child with your extra laptop or smartphone, but resist the urge! Yes, they will be quiet and engrossed in the entertainment but it is a disservice to them and can very well have detrimental effects on their physical and mental development. Depending on age, you could allow 30 minutes - 1 hour of TV or tech gadget use per day per child, and planning those minutes to occur during your most intensely productive work sessions can be helpful.
There may be a few businesses where upfront fees may be required like activation fees or membership fees, for example, network marketing companies. This is even true for online businesses involving high ticket products. The best thing to do would be to simply avoid these businesses and select something that involves no cost or very low cost to begin with. This will ensure that there is minimum risk involved in the business for you. Blogging is one of the businesses that you can start free of cost if you choose a free platform for setting up the blog. Another great free business to consider is affiliate marketing. To sum it up, a good Christian home business idea does not have to cost a fortune and can be done on a shoe string budget. These businesses are legitimate and can provide you a good amount of profit if you work hard with it.
If you already cook with creative variety and serve only the most nutritious meals without stress or fatigue, skip this tip. If, however, meal preparation is still overwhelming and takeout is becoming more and more of a regular option while you dream of the gourmet meals you will prepare in the future, here is the solution: Accept that it is completely okay for you to serve the same basic "family favorite" menu every single week. These are the meals you know your children love (nutritious, yes) and you have cooked them a million times so you do not have to spend a lot of brainpower preparing it. If there are 14 family favorites which are fairly quick and not terribly intensive to make, create a rotating two week menu. If you only have seven, repeat the same week over and over. Now that you have made your list of meals, pick a day to serve each one (Fridays are homemade pizzas at my house, for example. Mondays every-other-week: blackened chicken pasta with a salad. Sunday nights might include popcorn, apples, and cheese. You get the idea.) Now, this will take a few minutes, but you only have to do this once! List the ingredients needed for each week's meals (either on paper or a spreadsheet where you can easily reorganize or even a grocery list app on your phone). Reorganize the list by the item's location in your favorite supermarket (canned goods, meats, produce, etc.) Now, you have your weekly grocery list! Make copies to take with you to the grocery store to mark off as you fill your basket. Stop stressing and buy the same things over and over! If you want to cook something different and fun on the weekend or once a week, leave space to write in a new recipe's ingredients and designate a day to prepare it. Adapt this to work for you and your lifestyle.
The truth is that quality and quantity of time are important with your children. It is easy to forget that just because the children are always with you doesn't mean you are actually with them. When your mind is focused on work and you do not drive away from a literal office building, it can be even more difficult to put work aside and give your children your undivided attention. It is critical that you find a way to connect with them! Try setting a timer for 30 minutes a few times a day to look your child in the eye as he or she talks to you and play with him or her or accomplish something fun together. Also, after dinner is over and the kitchen is clean, spend time reading with your children and showing them affection. They need you, and not just your physical presence, but your mental and emotional presence as well. Giving them your full attention during specifically scheduled times will help you not to break the "appointment" but it will also help your children not to be as needy during the times when you must focus on your professional tasks. They will come to relish and excitedly anticipate their one-on-one daily times with you (and you will be amazed at how connected you will feel to them and how it will bless your own heart!)
You probably already know what they are without much introspection, but take a few minutes anyway and list the activities you tend to use as diversions from your responsibilities. Maybe it is a social network or television channel or... you get the idea. Whatever it is that helps you procrastinate needs to be contained in a specific time period and then put away for the day. For example, you can have your cup of coffee in the morning while you spend 30 minutes of computer time on personal interests and then check back in with e-mail for 15 minutes after lunch. The important thing is that you have a plan and stick to it so that the diversions stop eating the time you could be connecting with your children and/or profiting in your job. Also, think through your routine and find ways to make it more streamlined: Do your quick wipe of the sink and brushing of the toilet as soon as you finish your getting ready routine in the morning and don't go back in there until necessary. Clean up after your meal before you leave the kitchen. Have your older children bring their dirty laundry and put it in the washing machine instead of trekking to each room to do it yourself. Find ways to save steps and, subsequently, conserve energy and time. You will find you get better and better at this as you begin to practice it.
For the majority of moms I know, this is the most difficult appointment to keep, but it is the most important one. The stresses of work and parenting and life in general take their toll on your mind, body, and spirit. You absolutely must plan to rest! Exercise daily. (This can be done with your children running around in your yard. Be creative and think outside the box). Take a soothing bath after the kids are in the bed. Spend a few minutes reading at bedtime instead of watching television as it helps your body to relax and your sleep to be more restful. Connect with your spouse and invest in your relationship. Go to bed at a reasonable time instead of staying up late. Set aside Saturday (or at least most of it) as a day for family fun, a day when your children know you will not be working at your desk and making phone calls all day. You need it, and they need it. Sundays are a day of rest in our family. We go to church to worship and spend the day simply being together. Take time to nurture your spirit and the benefits will astound you. Resting is not being lazy. It is a much-needed reprieve from the daily grind and it will actually energize and fuel your productivity and success.
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