Our CEO and co-founder, Amber Riedl, shares her advice on how to effectively work from home with kids:
This week, thousands of office workers all over the world have switched to home office. Either as a preventative measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus or because of their kids, who have been forced to stay home because of schools and daycare closing. This is a huge change for the business world, and for us as individuals – we always thought of working remotely as new work – but the future of new work has arrived.
Most change is born of necessity, and I’ve been practicing home office out of necessity for years. I’m the mother of two boys, aged 10 and 8, and have built two start ups over the last ten years, most recently Makerist. I’ve done home office since they were born, while they were small, sick at school or daycare. I’ve made all the mistakes already and collected insights that will help me (and you) to get through the next few weeks at home. To break it down: these insights are structure, communication and self care.
Here is my practical advice in eleven tips:
- Structure: get up, have breakfast, brush your teeth and get dressed. For real. For so many home office days, I’ve slid through the day in my pyjamas and forgotten to take the time to brush my teeth. Realising in the evening that I’m still in my pyjamas makes me feel like I haven’t achieved anything during the day. A regular structure is important to stay mentally focused.
- Prioritise daily: make a plan each day: what are the most urgent tasks for the day and the week; where are interdependencies where others are waiting for your feedback or work product? Priorities can shift, depending on how much you and others can get done.
- Family conference: plan the day, give it a structure and let your family know when you need to work and when you are available to help with homework, prepare meals and play. I like to plan it as a family conference over breakfast so that everyone has some idea and control over how the day will play out. Let your kids be involved in suggesting activities that you can do together during break time.
- Communicate working times to your team: let them know when you are available for meetings and discussions, and when you will be taking breaks or be busy with your kids. This also helps to increase trust among teams that everyone is contributing to the best of their abilities and helps with scheduling. For example, if you use Slack as a team tool, you can quickly post in the group chat if you need to take a break, or you can set it in your status.
- Connect with your co-workers: even if you don’t have anything urgent to discuss, stay connected. This helps to keep spirits up, to feel connected and have a bit of fun. At Makerist, there’s a lot of chat flying around on Slack that is not 100% connected to work. Use this as an opportunity to actively reach out 1 x 1 to people and congratulate them or compliment them on projects and results. Consider writing more comprehensive update emails about projects you are leading to keep everyone aligned and up to speed on where the project (and you) stand. If you can foresee not being able to keep a deadline, communicate it early – this will help where there are interdependencies.
- Home schooling: in the times of coronavirus, most kids are not sick but just at home. They still have a plan for school work and they still need to learn. Agree on fixed times for learning and plan in breaks. Kids in German primary schools only learn in 45 minute blocks. Take time to review the work together at the start and again at the end of this block. This helps kids get a good sense of achievement too. Beyond the things that kids need to learn from their school books, use the time to talk with them about your work, what’s going on in the world, to read books and do other projects, crafts or experiments together.
- Move your body: try a home practice for yoga, a workout from YouTube or a fitness app, or just a walk around the block. Moving your body is so important to feel good. If you can, combine this with your kids – we sometimes practice yoga together, go for a bike ride together, play a game of ping pong or play catch in the park. If not, take the time to do it anyways.
- Practice self care: I know it may seem like there is no time for yourself and that you need to maximise the amount of time you spend at the computer when you are not caring for your kids – but trust me, you need self care more. Take some time out to read a book, connect with your friends on the phone, take a bath, meditate. Meditation (or even sitting for a few minutes with nothing to do) can make such a huge difference to your mental health and keep stress levels down. These are important for keeping your immune system strong and keeping you healthy.
- Avoid multi-tasking: Trying to quickly complete tasks from your mobile phone while cooking noodles for lunch – can be done in a fix, but it’s definitely not recommended. This can quickly turn into bad work habits and create expectations that everything can be done right away. Moreover – not recommended for optimal mental health and any feeling of satisfaction. For me, working like this resulted in a case of tennis elbow from the bad ergonomics of working from my mobile phone while on the move.
- Divide and conquer housework: talk about all the tasks that are needed to keep the household running and divide them amongst everyone at home – partner, kids, yourself. There will be a lot more cooking, cleaning and tidying up than normal – three round meals a day, yo! If your home is also your office, you need to keep it orderly. It means more discipline in keeping things clean and clear division of tasks. Since the schools shut down, I’ve increased the number of age-appropriate chores that each kid is responsible for – setting and clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher for example – and organised different tasks for me and my husband. I do the clothes, he does the dishes. Now we’ve just got to stick to it.
- Loosen up on screen time rules: I’m not a huge fan of letting Netflix ‘babysit’ my kids, but let’s be real. With everyone at home on top of each other for 24 hours a day? Parents with multiple pressures of minding their children, home schooling them, increased housework and trying to maintain a regular work schedule? Something’s gotta give. Instead of your nerves, let it be your position on TV and screen-time. Our kids are normally just allowed screen time on the weekends, but we’ve added bonus time now for evenings during the week. Everyone needs something to look forward to.
Here’s an example of a way to set up the day with kids at home:
