If you have to work from home due to sudden school closures or unexpected natural disasters, it is not easy to combine the two. If you do not send your children to daycare or school, you will be burdened with childcare, which may seriously impair work efficiency when working from home. In this article, we’ll show you 10 ways you can be productive while successfully coping with telecommuting and parenting.
Table of Contents
1. Secure a work space where you can focus.
Because the work efficiency of telecommuting is affected by the space in which you work, it is important to have a space where you can focus on your work, such as when you are at work. Use a private room or an area with little access to family members as your work space.
If you don’t have much space, it’s a good idea to create an environment where you can focus on a part of your living room or bedroom. You can increase your concentration at work if you prepare the necessary supplies for work in advance so that you do not have to empty your desk frequently.
2. Start work early in the morning.
The biggest advantage of telecommuting is that commuting time is simplified. Working from home can be more efficient if you use your spare time flexibly, because it helps your child get ready for school or reduces time to work. If work hours can be adjusted flexibly, it is a good alternative to put the child to sleep until a little later than usual, make the most of the morning time, and finish the afternoon work a little earlier to secure time to spend with the child.
3. Prepare a play your child can do alone.
If your child visits Mom and Dad at frequent intervals while working from home, it is difficult to focus on work. It’s also a good idea to plan in advance a play that your child will focus on. Securing quiet working hours by preparing activities that children can enjoy on their own, such as simple origami, drawing, or reading picture books without the help of parents. It is also effective to decorate the living room by dividing the living room into an origami corner, a reading corner, and a toy corner, just like the classroom at the child’s school, so that children can find and play with what they need.
If there is a phone or video conference, check the meeting time in advance, and prepare content that your child can watch at that time – TV or video service, or other intensive play. Free up time to focus on the meeting without your child being disturbed.
4. Make a regular life plan for your child.
It is not easy to convey a play/study plan to the child every time while concentrating on work and to check the progress. Creating a regular life plan can help each other, especially if you have to deal with your child every day due to working from home for extended periods of time. For example, if you plan different types of activities, such as school classes, on a daily/weekly basis, prepare a checklist and have your child check it out after each activity, you can induce active participation and concentration of the child.
If you have assignments in an online class or school, it’s a good idea to mark deadlines on your timetable so that your child can take the initiative in their work. Also, include time to develop creativity after homework, such as origami or drawing, or set aside time for simple outdoor activities during parental lunch time to give your child free time to engage in outdoor activities that he or she enjoys.
5. Set goals for your child.
If you are away from school for weeks or even months, you may be concerned about your child’s learning and progress. In this case, you need to help your child learn with a sense of purpose by doing homework and giving homework and deadlines through proper guidance every day. For effective parenting, it is necessary to set aside time after the parent’s work to check the child’s homework together. Checking your child’s progress, as well as the process of answering and checking the answers together, gives your child a sense of accomplishment, which in turn helps them focus on their next goal.
If your child is old enough to learn on their own, getting help from homework in addition to studying can help them work effectively from home. Asking for help with simple chores that a child might be able to do, such as putting a bowl in the dishwasher, cleaning his room, or folding the laundry, can help children become more self-reliant and reduce the burden of housework.
6. Minimize pot life as much as possible.
In every day when 24 hours are not enough, it is also a way to reduce household time as much as possible. For example, if you buy enough groceries or use online shopping to shop 2-3 times a week rather than go shopping every day, and prepare side dishes for the week in advance on the weekend, you can reduce the time spent on housework on weekdays. there is. It is not enough to prepare a meal, take care of the child’s lunch, and even clean up after an hour-long lunch break. It is also difficult to focus on work right after lunch. Therefore, prepare a week’s groceries and side dishes in advance on weekends or when you have free time so you don’t waste your lunch break and dinner time after work. You can also spend this reduced household time with your children.
7. Take advantage of nap time.
If your child is still of the age when he or she needs a nap, make the most of his or her nap time as work time. If your child’s nap time is the time for tasks that require concentration, you can reduce the amount of time the child is ignoring their needs and help while awake, and you can balance work and parenting.
8. Choose the quietest time for online meetings.
If you need an online meeting with co-workers or external business partners, take advantage of the quietest part of the day to focus on the meeting. If you set the meeting time to a time in the morning when your child is sleeping or when he is concentrating on homework or play, you can avoid being distracted from online meetings to care for your child.
9. Take turns parenting with your spouse.
If your spouse also works from home, you can efficiently combine work and childcare by setting childcare hours with your spouse and taking turns. If you and your spouse have a well-balanced amount of time to focus on your work, you will not only be more productive at work, but will also be less stressed.
10. Balance work and life.
Finally, the key to working from home is to strike a work-life balance. Because telecommuting does not have time and space restrictions, the boundaries between life and work may become blurred as you work. In order to increase the productivity of work and childcare, it is important to separate work time as much as possible, shut down the computer immediately after work, and use it for family time, such as doing housework or checking children’s homework.
