Today we are going to talk about finding time to squeeze in your work when you kids are home or when your kids are out of school.

If you’re anything like me, when your kids are around it’s super hard to get anything done. Cleaning, organizing, or anything that isn’t about them, especially working or having 10 minutes of quite to say record a podcast… is virtually impossible.

But if you really want to, you can find little pockets of time to work.  And I know personally that there’s nothing to get your butt into gear and get it done, then having a short amount of time ticking away.  That’s why timers work so well. (but that’s a whole other episode that we’ll cover) I don’t know about you but some of my best stuff comes out when I’m under pressure.  Tell me you’ll be at my house in 15 minutes I can speed clean like a pro. 🙂  

So I’ve come up with a list of ten tactics to use when you need to sneak in a little bit of work time.  Some of these you may have heard but I bet there’s a few that you hadn’t thought of yet.  Sometimes we have to hear it more than once in before we take action. 

1. Swap time with another mom.  

Have a few hours where you take her kids and she will take yours.

2. Ask your spouse to come home early from work one day per week.

Or find a couple hours on the weekend where you can escape and get some work done.

3. Get up early.

If you’re a morning person get up and get a little time in before the kids wake up.  I know this is easier said than done but maybe you just do this a couple times a week.

4. Work after bedtime.

On the flip side if you are more of a night owl then sneak in some late night work when the kids are in bed.

5. Go to the gym. 

A lot of gyms that have childcare allow you 1.5 to 2 hours of care.  Some moms have started using this time to work.  Maybe they work out for 30 minutes and then use the rest of the time to get some solid work in.  

6. The library.  

Books, puppets, wifi what else could you want.  I do this weekly in the summer.

This works great for kids that old enough to spend time flipping through books without needing to guide the whole thing and If you have a kiddo that is a little older they can spend time reading to the little or putting on a puppet show.  

I think the most important tip is to set expectations that you are here for a specified amount of time and you need them to play by themselves so you can get your work done.

7. Indoor play areas/trampoline gyms.  

Grab a seat where you can see them and see the door and let them play or jump for an hour or two while you get some serious work in.  You just need to look up every few minutes to make sure that everything is ok.

8. Go to the movies.  

Pick a seat in the back row, pop those earbuds in and turn the light on your screen down.  

9. Have a schedule.

I know, I know you’ve been hearing about schedules since before you popped your kiddo out. But seriously we all do better when we know what’s on the agenda for the day.  Write it out for your kids to see.

Depending on how your kids are you might spend some quality time with your kiddos doing some fun stuff then take a break where they play on their own for a while.  Keep boxes of toys that you only pull out when you need this time.  Or pull out their favorite things when you need this time.  

I’ve always wanted to be the toy rotation mom but I never got there. Instead, I would keep out some of their favorites that I didn’t need to help them and give it to them when I need time to focus.  

10. Tech!

If you still need a more time, maybe you have a call that you need to take or you just can’t make any of these things work for you then, by all means, use tech!  I know we are told endlessly that we shouldn’t let our kids have too much screen time but let’s get real it works.  

If you need to squeeze in a little work there is nothing wrong with handing your kid a device or putting a movie so that you can get crap done so that you can spend some focused time with your kiddos afterward.

I want to end by saying that it is extremely hard to work with your kids at home.  It may feel like you’re out of balance but just take care of yourself, take care of kids and keep taking action and your business will keep moving forward.

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