The Art of Working in Short Time Periods
Time is short for work at home moms. You have dinner to make, kids to look after, often the only time you get to work during the day is in bits and pieces here and there, five or ten minutes at a time. How can you make those little pieces of time productive? That´s what we are going to discuss today.
Being organized is the best way to make sure you don´t waste time with trying to figure out what to do. By the time you have decided what task should be done, your toddler is waking from his nap or your older child has become bored with Blue´s Clues and wants you to play with her.
To Do List
The to do list is an oldie but a goody. Write down everything you MUST accomplish the night before. Post the list on your fridge or anywhere that you will have easy access to it. When writing your list, try to make sure that you break larger tasks into smaller ones that can be accomplished in a few minutes. For example, if you need to redesign your webpage, you might put something like “Write welcome page”, “Choose buttons”, etc. This way you can simply sit down and do a task quickly and efficiently.
Materials Box
Get everything you need together in one place so you can get started right away, without looking all over the house for your gold ribbon to tie around your bars of soap. Again, this is a good thing to do before bed because you likely will be distracted in the morning with breakfast and waking children up.
Prioritize
Avoid last minute stress by figuring out ahead of time what your most important tasks of the day are and getting them done early. This way, you get them out of the way and can focus on more interesting things.
Just Do It
This Nike phrase is ideal for working at home. Don´t stop to worry if the baby is going to wake up while you are working, or to wonder if you should do things differently. You won´t finish if you don´t start. So stop thinking too much and just do it. You should have everything planned out ahead of time so you can simply pick a task and begin it immediately.
By being organized and efficient, you can get quite a bit done in those spare moments during the day. Now, as for finding time to work, that is for a whole other article!
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