Breaking the Work-at-Home Habits

Moms who juggle the roles of work and family under the same roof, often become caught in the tug of war: work or spend time with the kids. Sadly this is where I discovered the seesaw effect: spend more time with my daughter, and then my work suffers, or focus on work, to then have my daughter suffer. So how does one find a way to level the teeter-totter?

In the past year, I’ve wrestled with this ongoing battle as a mom of 1, while working from home online. In the beginning, the adjustment of being a new mom, and planting my entrepreneurial roots online was complete chaos. I had quickly learned two very important new skills: copy and paste, and how to do EVERYTHING one-handed. After 9 months of breastfeeding my daughter on one side, then typing one-handed on the other, while simultaneously wedging a phone between my tilted head and shoulder during conference calls, something had to give.

Besides my daily online commute, I was also working part-time on the weekends in a bustling Intensive Care Unit in a hospital. Can you say “Overload’? Over time, I found myself playing catch up on the weekdays lulled to my monitor like a moth to a flame, dazed by the constant projects, emails, and IM’s. Like an addict, it was my drug; only to be interrupted every 3 hours to breastfeed my daughter, or to graze on whatever food was accessible (meaning didn’t require cooking) from the kitchen. By dinner my husband was home from work, only to fulfill a 2-hour ‘temp’ parental position, usually requiring me to follow closely for damage control.

The reality is becoming a mom has offered me the toughest project in my career. After 9 months of swimming upstream in this turbulent world, my moment of truth came while away on vacation. My husband was watching TV in the hotel room as my daughter took her afternoon nap. So I tiptoed out of the room to do the unthinkable...Yes, to look for the nearest business center to check my email! I may as well have been a “social drinker” taking a swig of beer from a brown paper bag in a bathroom stall. Only then did things become clear- I needed to make some changes, quick.

Work would always be there. Being an entrepreneur is not like writing a book. There is no tangible end or completion point when starting out. So the floodgates opened and it hit me like a wall. No matter how many emails I read through, projects I completed, there would always be more; but my daughter’s first words, steps and embraces will not. My daughter’s childhood will only happen once, and who am I to put a price on that.

So back to the seesaw is where I find myself- where both ends of the structure must exist. After leaving my position as a nurse, and several relapses, I struggled for a working balance. I made a promise that no matter what, I would designate time for my daughter each day and take her out of the house (for playgroups, the library, park, etc). And I began designating hours in the day for work, leaving everything else for my family. There was never a shortage of moms advising me to schedule my time, but until I took the initial steps to create my own balance, it would never happen. Sure, it was hard breaking the addictions. The need to check emails constantly throughout the day was especially hard to shake, and still is. The temptation is always there, like a pack of cigarettes sitting on my desk. Only my addiction pings to summon me. I must remember that in the end, when those entrepreneurial roots bloom into a beautiful array, I need to make sure that I’m still connected to my family, so we can all bask in it’s glory together (or suffer defeat in good company).