How To Create Work/Life Balance As A Work At Home Mom

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A good work/life balance may be the most difficult thing for moms who work from home to achieve. It can seem like a distant fantasy, being able to get all your responsibilities accomplished with your job or business and still having time for yourself, partner & family without sacrificing anything.

Well you don’t have to keep dreaming! Work/life balance is actually attainable- even if you are a mom that works at home!

It might take a little effort to find and settle into an effective routine that works for you, but it’s definitely worth it in the long run. It can help give more energy, higher fulfilment on a day by day basis, plenty of quality time spent with loved ones and just enough downtime to make sure you can relax too!

Here are some tips to create a healthy work/life balance as a work from home mom. 

Develop a good daily routine

When you’re just trying to wing it, it can be hard to find time for yourself and your family. Establishing daily routines is the key if you want to be productive during work time but also spend quality time with loved ones.

Schedule in times for breaks and meals. Set an end-of-day deadline: when do we need to stop working? This will help to stop you feeling the need to return to your work during the evening or family time.

This productive routine doesn’t have to be a set-in-stone schedule. You don’t need to break up your day into exact minute increments, but rather create an outline of what needs to get done each day and how long it should take you if you’re managing time efficiently.

Allow for some flexibility as unexpected things do come up; life happens! It’s possible that one day something might crop up like taking care of a sick child, which pushes back your ability to work until the following day. However, by following a flexible routine daily, you’ll find that more tasks from that never ending list will start getting knocked off before they pile up even further.

Create a designated work space

Having a designated work area away from the rest of your home is ideal for working as a stay-at-home mom. The space doesn’t have to be huge or extravagant, but it should be separate and off limits during family time so you can leave “work mode” even when at home. Use this space only for work. This will help you focus more as you’ll train yourself to enter ‘work mode’ while there and not feel like you’re still at ‘the office’ during family or rest times.

Minimize distractions while working

You want to be as productive with your time at home, work and in between. Doing so will help you balance the parts of life that are important to you. Being productive doesn’t always mean working on something all day long – it just means focusing during your work hours and also designating time to leisurely activities like relaxing or watching TV when possible too!

Set aside time each day for work and create a plan to stay on top of it. Turn off the TV, close social media, avoid letting yourself get sucked into watching Netflix or spending an afternoon having coffee with friends and missing hours of work time. You’ll only end up having to work extra during your ‘non work’ time and throwing off your routine and schedule.

Put down your phone

The cell phone is possibly the biggest distraction of all for most people, including work from home moms. We feel that desire to be connected to the world, and tend to keep our phones with us 24/7 – but this can lead into an obsession that is both time-consuming and unproductive. A quick check of Facebook can lead you down a rabbit hole where before you know it, a whole hour has been spent on mindless scrolling through social media!

Set boundaries around what’s considered “worktime” versus personal time; let close family members know about these hours so they don’t expect contact and try setting your phone in do not disturb mode, so only emergency calls get through.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

There are those days when you feel like a superhero. You’re juggling the job, taking care of your kids and doing all the household chores while trying to make dinner and answer 20 questions from your toddler! But then there’s those times where it feels impossible for one person to do everything. Carrying on trying to do everything yourself is an easy way to burn out quickly.

It happens more often than we want to admit- most moms find themselves feeling as though they should do it all by themselves every single minute of their lives without any help whatsoever from anyone else in order to accomplish everything at work or with their family life but this only leads to exhaustion.

Moms find themselves feeling the need to do it all. Sometimes it can feel like it’s your responsibility to work, tend to your family, make sure that chores are taken care of, and run the errands. You need to be earning an income, but you also want to be a dedicated mom and wife. However, it’s virtually impossible for one person to do it all and admitting that isn’t failure – it’s the opposite! Families work best when everyone is contributing together.

Delegate tasks to your partner or kids. Even small children can help tidy up around the house and clear away laundry. Never be afraid to ask for help and don’t be shy about taking advantage of any help offered to you!

Find time-saving hacks

Freeing up time can be the best way for work at home moms to achieve a good work/life balance. It may sound like an impossible feat, but it absolutely can work if you know where and how to cut back so that you have more free time. Here are a few ideas:

• Plan grocery deliveries or pick-ups in advance of when they are needed
• Shop online to save time getting to and from the shops.
• Organise things such as bills and banking online so you don’t have to make special trips out.
• Make sure you’re getting help at home so it’s not just you cooking dinner every night and try things such as meal prepping to save time.

Try anything you can that works well for your household and frees up some extra time.

Look after yourself too

When you’re trying to juggle being a mom with taking care of everything else, it’s easy to overlook someone: yourself! If you let yourself run on empty day after day, there’s no way you can maintain a healthy work/life balance. 

Always include some “me time” into your weekly schedule – whether its getting in a bubble bath every other night or reading for 30 minutes per evening. Remember that you are allowed to have days off from work and prioritise family time and self care.

With all the balls you’re juggling, make sure to take care of yourself alongside your family and work.

 Keeping that work/life balance 

It’s not easy to create work/life balance, especially as a work at home mom. But with a few adjustments and time-saving hacks, it can be achieved. Developing a routine will help give structure in what are usually chaotic days for working moms. Keeping free from distractions with a designated work space can be key to keeping work from overflowing into family time and remembering to look after yourself will help keep your energy topped up for both work and family commitments.