As a full time litigator with two young children, I am often asked to write about life balance from the standpoint of a working mom. Because I ordinarily work outside the home, entrusting other people to care for my kids during that portion of the day, separating work life from home life has not been very difficult in the past, primarily because of the physical separation. Of course, there has always been the standard guilt over not being one of the moms at school every Thursday stuffing take-home folders or over missing a field trip due to a work conflict. But advice such as outsource your laundry has always been sufficient to help me manage the dual roles inherent in being a working mom. My friends, we have undergone a sea change.
Today, as I write this while sitting at the same table where my family will have dinner tonight, with my eight-year-old son next to me saying every letter out loud as he types it, and my husband playing hide and seek with my four-year-old six feet away, the relative ease that came with the physical distance of my office has been obliterated by the coronavirus. I have been interrupted six times in the past five minutes. One of two feelings has come to dominate most of my days over the past three weeks: irritation or gratefulness, and those feelings can flip flop at alarming speed.
A few moments ago, I was gritting my teeth while I typed, irritated with family for disrupting my concentration while I am trying to get work done. But now, as I look out the living room window and see my two boys playing ball with their dad, I am nearly overcome with gratefulness for the opportunity to spend non-weekend daytime hours with the three of them. I am grateful to Sutliff & Stout Law Firm for transitioning to shelter in place so smoothly. Whoops, flip-flopped. You cannot imagine how loudly the young man suddenly sitting next to me again can drink a glass of water.
How to manage this abrupt transition to working at home is a question on a lot of minds, especially now that we are officially home-schooling our children. I do not claim to be a model of success or have a novel approach to any of this, but I am managing to make the feelings of gratefulness outweigh the irritation. By keeping gratefulness on top, I am able to maintain my family’s productivity as well as our enjoyment of life. Here’s how:
- Take the time to establish and follow a routine. We start every day with Morning Meeting, and keep the kids on a school schedule largely influenced by what they did when they actually went to school.
- Go outside. We are so fortunate to live adjacent to a trailhead. Our daily walks in the woods listening to birds and looking for deer bring much peace and perspective to our family.
- If you can, flex your workday to allow yourself to take advantage of this time at home. I have blocked out an hour every afternoon for our walk in the woods, even though it is during my usual work day. The time is a gift to myself, and the parental attention helps my kids play on their own while I work later in the day.
- Relax the screen time limits. At our house, we’re keeping our usual limits in place for TV and video games, but we are allowing increased use of educational media. Many of the options out there are very good, and after you vet the sites, you can trust that your children are learning in a safe environment while you write that brief.
- Watch what you eat. We all know that good nutrition helps with energy and mood. To keep myself from ambling over to the kitchen whenever the mood strikes me, I am using a phone app to track my food intake.
This is life for the foreseeable future. We cannot push pause and wait it out. These moments are shaping our families and our careers. And because of that, modeling gratefulness while maintaining productivity remains as important as ever. How are you helping gratefulness win in your life? How does your attitude impact your productivity?
Bio:Leigh Joseph is an attorney at Sutliff & Stout, Injury & Accident Law Firm.
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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