SUCCESS STRATEGIES FOR BUSY WORK-AT-HOME MOMS
TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS
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Create a list that outlines the basic responsibilities around the home that you must also complete. This list may include things like laundry, meals, and basic cleaning.
Both lists should be prioritized from the most important to the least important.
Remember to simply do your best. The balance of living in the space where you work can be overwhelming. There will be days when you are productive and days that you may feel as if you are getting nothing done. There will be days where the unexpected occurs, and you may have to learn to adjust change quickly. However, if you are able to handle these common home office issues, you are sure to succeed at your career.
Time Management Strategies
When working in your home office, the very first thing that you should at the beginning of your work week make a list of tasks that you must complete each day. This may include ongoing projects, the review of projects that are completed to ensure quality, making important phone calls or emails related to your work, and any major business appointments.
Time Management Tips and Tools
Worksnaps | Verifiable Time and Work Tracking
WorkRave | Breaktime and Work Limit Alert
Genbook | Online Appointment Scheduling and Payment Capture
Bubble Planner | A Visual Organizer for Visual People
OmniFocus for Apple | Task Management Application
Remember The Milk | The Best Way to Manage Your Tasks
Always Make a List
Franklin Covey | Planning and Organizing Products
USPS | Printable Postage (with no membership fees)
Deliver Freedom | Time Management Strategies Blog
MomAgenda | Stylish Planner for Busy Moms
Big Contacts | Web Based CRM Software
Rescue Time | Get Serious About Your Productivity
Managing Interruptions
Everyday interruptions can be a huge barrier to managing your time effectively and, ultimately, will be an obstruction to your success.
The key to controlling interruptions is to know what they are and whether they are necessary, and to plan for them in your daily schedule. The tips that follow will help you do that, and so prevent interruptions from frustrating you and jeopardizing your success.
Use the following tips to understand and manage interruptions:
1. Keep An Interrupters Log | Download Log
2. Analyze and Conquer Interruptions
3. Put Your Phone to Work for You (Not Against You)
4. Catch Your Breath
5. Learn to Say "No"
6. "Available" and "Unavailable" Time
7. "Invitation Only" Time
8. Uncontrollable Interruptions
If interruptions consistently rob you of time and energy, or if they frequently push you off schedule and cause delays, it's time to keep an Interrupters Log. This is a simple record of the interruptions you experience in the course of a day.
To analyze and conquer the interruptions you find in your Interrupters Log, firstly look at whether the interruption is valid or not.
Next, look at how urgent the interruptions were, and whether they could have been pre-empted. You can pre-empt many interruptions by holding routine meetings with people: If they're confident that they'll have access to you at a defined point in the near future, they'll learn to save up non-urgent issues until this meeting.
However, some interruptions are both urgent and valid. You need to be interrupted, and you need to deal with the situation.
From your Interrupters Log, you'll see how much time is taken up by these urgent, valid interruptions. Block this time into your schedule as "contingency time", and only take on as much other work as you can fit into the remaining time. You'll have to juggle this other work around the interruptions, but at least you won't be overloaded and stressed by the things that you haven't done because they've been displaced by emergencies.
A little bit of planning can go a long way in working to control telephone interruptions, which many people experience all day long. If you are on a deadline or your focus needs to be intense (and not interrupted), use your caller ID to screen calls, or turn your ringer off for a certain amount of time and have your voice mail deal with messages for you. This way, you can deal with calls by priority, and at times that suit you. In fact, this telephone time can be planned into your schedule, and so become a normal part of your working day.
When interrupted, it's easy to get caught up in the "rush" of the person who is interrupting, for they undoubtedly feel their request is urgent. Take a few minutes to consider the situation. Catch your breath and clear your head. A small delay, even one of just a few minutes, goes a long way in assessing the situation accurately and reacting appropriately.
It's often acceptable to say "no" to requests or tasks if you are busy when someone else can handle it, if it is not an important task, or if it can be done later.
When this is the case, saying "no" in a courteous and sincere way, followed by a short explanation is the best course of action to take: "I am working against a very tight deadline on an important project right now so, I am sorry, but I can not jump in and help".
Simple yet effective: Let people know when you are available. and when you are not. Make sure that people know that during your "unavailable time", they should only interrupt you if they have to.
Schedule regular check-in times for the individuals you talk to most often. Ask these people to keep a running list of things that they need to discuss, so you can cover all the points at one time. And, force yourself to do the same.
There are interruptions that, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot control.
Most people are happy to schedule a more convenient time, but when this does not work, quickly set the parameters by saying something like,
"I only have five minutes to talk about this right now," and stick to it, then if needed, schedule a time to finish the conversation.
