How to Work From Home with a Child and Still be Productive

Last night it snowed.  When I woke up, there was an entire inch on the ground, and it was still snowing.  It’s now 3PM and I have 4 inches.  School miraculously was cancelled for my son today which meant we either had to scramble to find a daycare, I could work from home for the day, or my wife could cancel all her clients and stay home.  We opted for me to stay home.  I can still be quite productive due to some tricks I have learned over the past few years of being a parent.  I hope my wife never reads this post.

First, the normal 8 hour day, will need to be longer due to the breaks within the day.  The way I figure it, work accounts for 8.5 hours which includes two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute break for lunch(unpaid).  This essentially means I need to work for 7.5 hours to feel like working from home was productive.  7.5 hours broken up into chunks isn’t so bad.

5:30 – 6:00 Eat Breakfast, take a shower, get dressed.

6:00 – 7:30 – Do work, check e-mail, get the daily reporting out while my wife is still home and I can concentrate = 1.5 Hours

7:30 – 8:00 – Feed my son, make coffee.

8:00 – 9:30 – Son watches TV and keeps himself occupied while I get some more work done = 1.5 Hours

9:30 – 9:45 – Snack time, talk about the animals that were just on TV.

9:45 – 10:30 – Son colors while I get more work done = .75 hours

10:30 – 11:30 – Give my son his I-pad to play games while I take a conference call = 1 Hour

11:30 – 12:15 – Forget to take I-pad away, and get extra work done = .75 hours

12:15 – 12:45 – Make lunch for both of us and eat together, trying to break up his day and mine.

12:45 – 2:00 – Check e-mails, get more work done while Max watches the tube… it is a snow day = 1.25 Hours.

2:00 – 2:30 – Play fight on the bed, talk about school, read a book

2:30 – 3:00 – Sneak away to get some more work done = .5 hours.

3:00 – 3:45 – Son asks for the I-pad, I say no and we fight until we agree to play connect 4.

3:45 – 4:15 – Work while my son colors again = .5 hours

All this in total = 7.75 hours which is more than the minimum which I’m sure makes up for the few extra distractions that did not happen today. 

The day needs to be broken up for the kids to make it work.  Too much of one thing does not make the day go quickly.

You need quiet time for the important stuff and an I-pad is great for that.

I probably worked more today than I normally would at work because I don’t have people stopping by my office to chit chat and I can just focus on work.

Maybe I’ll shoot for one day a week working from home when my son isn’t around.  Imagine how productive I will be.