I work from home so that I can stay at home with my kids – it’s wonderful, but it is easy to become overworked. If you’re like me, you’ve found yourself spending more time with your work than with your kids more often than you’d like. We all have the same 24 hours in a day but how do you know if you’re doing too much? It starts with tracking your time.
Have you ever plopped your kids in front of the TV so that you could work? Guilty. What about looking at your phone while your children play amongst themselves? Yep. Do you stress until you snap over the littlest things? Guilty again. Ever skipped your daily devotional for that extra time to get work done? Unfortunately.
I’ve done these things – and I don’t think I’m alone. While these might be signs of doing too much to work from home, there are a few things to look out for. Identify what it looks like to work too much and then you can start fixing it.
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1. Inability to Relax with an Overworked Mind
An overworked work from home mom typically feels like she can’t relax. If you sit down and immediately think about everything that you need to do, you’re probably working too much. When you’re unable to relax at the end of a long day, the stress just piles on. It’s not good for you, for your kids, or your marriage.
2. You Cut Sleep Short to Finish Work
Do you stay up far past your normal bedtime to get some work done? Or maybe you wake up before the sun? You are likely overworked if your sleep falls below 7 hours per night. Sleep is more important than most people realize. Without enough sleep, you may find yourself irritable, depressed, forgetful, and even impaired in your judgment. There are a number of other effects of insomnia or getting too little sleep than can cause you to complete even less work than you would if you had rested for the recommended amount of time.
3. Overworked Moms Experience Negative Changes in Health
Because of the increased stress and lack of sleep, working too much can lead to health concerns. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even an increased frequency of the common cold can come along with overworking. If you’re seeing an increase in health problems, it may be a result of doing too much. Examine your habits and evaluate yourself with honesty.
4. Productivity is on the Decline
If you are working more and accomplishing less, you may consider the idea that your productivity is a result of overworking. You might notice a need to work later or possibly even adding an extra day to your workweek. Realizing the downward spiral of your productivity might be a great thing in the end – you can now do something to improve your lifestyle.
Work from Home with a Work-Life Balance
I recently took on a whole new challenge. On top of being a work from home mom and wife, and blogging, I started working toward my doctorate degree. Why in the world would I add something to my plate when I already have so many tasks? Here’s why: I knew I wasn’t using my time wisely. I could be so much more productive if only I’d stuck to my schedule, put away social media during work hours, and focused.
So, how do I manage it without feeling overworked? I spend all day with my kids. I have to use their screen time and bedtimes very wisely so that I can place the main focus on my family. Family is what I value most. C & N are the reason I started working from home to begin with.
Know What Needs to Get Done
It can be hard to juggle several roles if you don’t know what you need to do. Feeling overworked can happen easily if you miss deadlines and fall behind. I use Google tasks to keep track of things in a simple way. My tasks are set to remind me to do my Bible study every day. Any work, school, or family-related tasks are put in Tasks with a due date so that I know when it needs to be done. Another great tool is Tody, an app that helps you to manage when you clean certain areas of your home. I get a notification when I should dust or vacuum or any other chores I’ve set up. Knowing what needs to be done is just the start, however.
When you know what needs to be done and you’ve made your to-do list or used Google Tasks to lay out your needs, you have to figure out when to do each task and how long it will take. Having a regular schedule is a huge help with this.
My Regular Schedule: Overworked No More
For me, most days go about the same. My kids are great about sleeping until around 8:30 am. So, between 8:30 am and 10 am I make breakfast, eat with my kiddos, and take my coffee to the living room for a relaxing morning. My 19 month old is still nursing, so we tend to use that time for her morning session as well. C & N occupy themselves dancing to whichever Disney soundtrack they’ve picked while I get started on cleaning up the kitchen and starting laundry around 10. That’s usually done by 10:30, so I get a good hour to an hour and a half to be with my babies. One of our favorite activities is to do a workout video together – it’s super adorable seeing them plank or do bicycle kicks alongside me.
Before I make lunch, I usually switch the laundry over to dry. After eating (typically around noon), we take a family walk. This has been a regular addition with the presence of COVID and is now a favorite activity. When we get back from our walk, we spend some time in the (minuscule) backyard or break out the art supplies. We spend the rest of the day nursing, napping, doing chores, playing, or reading. Vacuuming in my house is especially easy, as my kids turn it into a “dodge the vacuum” game.
Making Dinner Time My Own
The babies get screen time while I make dinner at 5. I’m a 30 minute meals kind of cook and they usually get an hour and a half each day. This gives me time to cook and work on my blog or writing. C & N watch an episode, eat dinner, and go back to watch a bit more after they’re done eating. Then we do baths and a nighttime routine, which gets us to bedtime at 7:30.
Bedtime is when work from home life really happens. My husband tends to take our daughter while I put our boy to bed. So, even if baby girl is struggling to go to sleep, he handles it so that I can get some work done. Our 3 year old goes down easy since he doesn’t nap, so I tend to work from 7:30 to 9:30 every evening. I will occasionally extend it to 10 if I have a lot of schoolwork, but it is a rarity. A huge bonus is the work I complete on my hubby’s days off, as I take a couple of hours in the afternoon to get things done. Each week I work about 15 hours and spend around 10 hours on my doctorate classes.
Sleep is the Goal
I always aim to be asleep by 1 so that I get 7 and a half hours. While I’m still working on going to bed on time, I have made more of an effort in recent days to do better. I love to sleep, so even when that book is hard to put down, I’m finding it easier to wake up in the morning when I’m out by 1. My husband is a night owl, too, so we spend a lot of our one on one time together late in the evening.
How Do I Stick to My Schedule?
I start by putting a timer on my social media. I’m terrible about scrolling and scrolling and wasting hours on my social media accounts. I’ve put a half an hour timer on my social media so that I can’t use more than 30 minutes each day. If you don’t know how much time you spend on Facebook, go to your app settings and check the screen time. It is often surprising to see the hours that you scrolled in a single day.
I use my downtime for me! Working nonstop, being a mom and a wife, and having time for yourself requires balance. I grab a coffee when I go to pick up my groceries, I take my time in the shower, take a timeout to do a devotional, and I read a few chapters of a book before bed. Just taking an hour to yourself each day helps to keep things on track. Avoiding the feeling of being overworked requires remembering to be you, by yourself.