A Day in My Life as a Work From Home Mom

Do you ever wonder how women do what people say is getting it all done or having it all? Or how do people balance both a schedule at home with their kids and having a job and maybe even working outside the home, which is really at home now with this whole pandemic situation.

Here is a quick rundown of an example of a day in my life as a work from home mom and what I do as a mom, as a business owner, and as a part time employee at another company.

Everyone’s situation is different. So for me right now, my husband and I are together with our two little ones. They are three and a half and five and a half as of this summer. And I have pretty much been a work from home mom since they got here. I worked a full time position a while ago. I left that position to finish a graduate program and I’ve been home with my babies ever since.

I run a part time network marketing business, my own brand, and I work part time at a university from home, where I usually went to an office two days a week. This is a quick example of what it looks like in my life personally, in terms of taking care of kids pretty much for like 14 hours a day. I’m squeezing at work in between the little cracks in my day and running a business and doing all that.

Morning Time

Number one morning time, if you’ve not read the book called The Miracle Morning, it’s amazing game changer concept that helps you prepare and set up your day to get a lot of things done and be really successful. And so the miracle morning idea is to do several activities such as help you get prepared.

Any of those activities can include things like journaling, reading meditation, doing affirmations, doing yoga, some kind of exercise form, or doing another activity around your house, like cleaning or preparing or something like that. The basic concept is to kind of get up earlier than everyone else in your house, which was really actually a game changer for me.

In terms of getting things done. It’s so nice just to wake up before the chaos of the kids starts and you just have some time to quiet your mind and do the things to get you ready for whatever may be that day. Most of the activities that I actually do with this are in my bed, I don’t actually get out of bed because if I do, then everybody will wake up.

We have really old squeaky floors. And so all of this I do on my bed. So I make sure that I have my planner next to me. When I, before I go to bed at night and I have my phone there to get some things done. Most days I get up at 7:00am to get things done to set the day.

Even if it’s something simple, like clean out your email, say some affirmations to yourself, plan some social media posts, engage and comment on Facebook and say hi to your friends and send messages and things like that, or really just kind of help you feel a little bit more connected and grounded.

My little ones are three and five. They do get up by themselves, out of their own beds at this point. And so they usually crawl in with us and we hang out for a little bit of time, but then we get everybody into the bathroom, get everybody dressed and go down for breakfast.

My kids are at the age where they still need some of those activities done with them, like we’re potty training right now. And you may be at the point where you have tiny babies and you’re taking care of them 24/7.

Or you may have a combination of some older kids that can do some things. My life’s kind of a little bit in the middle of both of those. And I know what they’re both like, so adjust this as you need to.

Breakfast

Then we have breakfast. This allows me to get a couple of things done in the kitchen like clean up the dishes, put them away, clean the countertops. I can put in a load of laundry most of the time where my kids are eating breakfast. I usually try to make something for myself, of course which I’m not really great at. I always make coffee.

Morning Time

And then we get on with the day. What our schedule has looked like during the time of technically when school is in session and for me, it will actually carry through most of the summer.

I do plan to do academic work with my kids because they need it and I’m happy to help them just continue to learn. So we usually in the morning, we’d sit down and do some kind of academic schoolwork. If we could get in a solid 45 minutes or an hour, I was super happy. That was a really big win for us to do some work with my daughter who is just finishing kindergarten.

I would set her up with activities and I would work one on one with her, but then I would also set my son up with things he could do, like just simple coloring and puzzles, because he always wanted to do what big sister was doing. So we usually do some kind of academic activity in the morning.

Outside the pandemic, the morning times were when we would go out to do things like go to the zoo, go visit friends, go to play dates, you know, run errands, go to the store. But we’re not doing some of those things currently. And so I really have tried to involve my kids with more things around the house. They love getting work and getting tasks to do, so they’re super happy when we ask them to help do things.

We had tried to do as much as that as we can. And then usually when we were done with activities and playing one on one and doing some schoolwork at home, we were there kind of play outside, maybe go for a walk early in the day, not very often, but then we would spend that time together in the morning. So these times when I’m with my children, I am not doing any kind of work activity at all.

I do not ever sit down at the laptop and I really tried try to be on my phone as little as possible. And my children are awake simply because it just isn’t productive for anybody. I don’t want my kids to think that my cell phone is more important than them. And I don’t want me to be distracted trying to do things when I know they actually really need my attention. And so we would concentrate and focus and spending dedicated time being present with each other in the mornings.

Lunch Time

Then once it comes around until lunchtime, we eat together. I can continue with laundry at this time or anything I didn’t do to clean up the kitchen.

When to Get Work Done

Here is the biggest tip. If you’re a woman that’s trying to get things done in terms of running a business at home, you have to be a naptime warrior.

You have to do the hustle when your kids are asleep. That is pretty much the only way I really ever got both my dissertation written finished grad school and starting my own business was when my children were asleep. Our nap time/quiet time is because my kids are phasing out of naps. They do still sleep a little bit, which I’m super grateful for, is usually between 1:00-3:00pm in the afternoons. And so we would just do quiet time. Then I would do hustle.

Every single time I sat down at my laptop to do things, I would have a task. I have checklists for pretty much all the procedures I do for my business. And so I would always just go to that and I wouldn’t be scrolling social media and I don’t waste time wondering how I can get the things done.

So all of the work that I would do that had to be at the home, my home like laundry, like cleaning, like grocery shopping is done when my children are awake and all the things that I can’t do when they’re awake, like working on the computer are, is when they are sleeping.

So then nap time, quiet time is usually from like until 3:00-3:30.

Late Afternoon

I have found that activities such as like creative activities, like art coloring, drawing and outdoor activities like walking, playing catch, that kind of stuff are great in the afternoon. That schedule has really worked well with us as well.

I could sometimes go for a walk in the afternoons, finish doing things around the house and just hang out with the kids some more.

Dinner Time

And then it’s dinner and we’re eating again. My kids are picky eaters, so I focus on getting them exposed to something new and involve them so they can see what food is like.

Now is when I can prep food for lunch the following day, prepare anything for dinner, or do dishes – again!

After Dinner

We were very restrictive in this house about not watching a lot of TV, but that really did change with the pandemic going on and us working from home and trying to get things done. And so if I let my children watch TV, for the most part, it is actually academic, you know, channels and stations. We have some YouTube subscriptions we love, and we have some Netflix shows that we do love and we let them watch things like documentaries with us.

After dinner we get outside or more playing inside.  We make sure the kids are always involved getting cleaned up, cleaning up the house, and cleaning up the toys. And then in the evening we do bath and bedtime routines.

It sounds like a lot of this revolves around the kids’ schedules, but of course it does with a three and five year old. Most of the work that I would do in terms of my business happens when my children were sleeping. So I know what it’s like to have your kids not go to bed and when you want them to go to bed. So I have really struggled with that. There are a lot of nights when sometimes my little boy is still up at 9:00 or 10:00pm.

If you have questions about the schedule or you have tips for work at home moms, I would absolutely love to hear them. And I hope this helps you have a super productive, super amazing and successful, happy and healthy day.

For more information on what I do each day in life and in business, find the Clarity & Confidence podcast here.