Getting the balance right

For parents who work from home, the blurred line between family life and work life is their biggest challenge, writes SHEILA WAYMAN

‘MUM, YOU’RE always on the computer!” wails one of my sons. Isn’t that what I should be saying to him? Cue self-examination. Where am I going wrong in combining work from home with raising a family?

If being at the computer outside times when they are at school or in bed is occasionally unavoidable, then that’s okay. But if work regularly spills over because I get distracted by internet browsing (very likely) or chores (extremely unlikely), a re-evaluation of time management is needed. (Or it could be said son just wants time on the computer, in which case an admonition of “go outside and play” is called for.)

Being based at home appears to be the perfect formula for work-life balance: no time wasted commuting, flexibility to work around children and freedom to prioritise your tasks for the day.

But the downside is that you are never away from work; you sit amid domestic chaos that you don’t have time to sort, while interruptions – both welcome and unwelcome – range from refereeing children’s squabbles and rebuffing sales people at the door, to friends and family phoning for a chat.

Unfortunately, there’s no chance any more of being paid for unproductive work, such as attending meetings. At home it is never a matter of just showing up – only completed work counts.

The blurred line between family life and work life is the biggest challenge when you are operating from home, says business consultant Darina Loakman, founder of iamawahm.com, an online site for mothers working from home. “What tends to happen is that the work life encroaches on family, more than the other way around.”

However, it is called work-life balance for a reason, she says. “It is rarely in balance all the time – it goes one way or the other and you have to accept that.” Her key advice is: “Be organised. There are no excuses.”

Take a core set of hours that you can dedicate to work each day, such as when children are in childcare or school, and then be flexible, catching up in the evenings or early morning as needs be. Try to separate your work space, so that you can walk away from it. If you don’t have a spare room, at least have a cupboard where you can put things and close the door.

It is important not only to get the right technology, but to learn how to use it, says Loakman, who has three children, aged 12, 10 and seven.

“People say, ‘If I had an iPhone or Blackberry, I would never be switched off.’ But you have to remember you are in charge of it, it is not in charge of you. You need to use it to help you.”

If mobile technology allows you to check your e-mails “while sitting on the beach, then do it while you are sitting on the beach – how fabulous is that?”

Family members have to co-operate with a parent working from home, she says. You need to make sure your children are as independent as possible from an early age. This is a different way of working. They have the benefit of having you around, but you are not there to do everything for them.”

In between the juggling, “me time” can be non-existent, but Loakman builds it into her daily routine. With her children out the door for school by 8.30am, she cycles down to the Forty Foot near her home in Sandycove, Co Dublin. Summer and winter, she meets friends there for a quick swim, before returning home to sit down at her desk by 9.30am. “Even if I never get out the rest of the day, I know I have done that.”

We ask three other mothers working from home how they cope and what advice they have:

Barbara Finucane, former executive editor of a women’s magazine in Sweden, runs a free online parenting magazine, parenthood.ie, from her home outside Ennis, Co Clare, where she lives with her husband, Kevin, who works in Intel, and their twin daughters, Róisín and Emma, who are five this month.

She misses the days when she could walk away from work. “Working from home, the computer, the iPhone is calling you the whole time.”

It is also “lonely in your head”, she says, with no colleagues and no time to go out and meet other mothers for coffee. Her office is in an open space overlooking the living room where her daughters happily play after pre-school while she works.

“I don’t supervise them the whole time, I kind of check on them,” she says. “It looks like somebody threw a bomb in there but it’s okay, I don’t have to entertain them, they are having fun.” That is the good thing about having twins – they are the same age, same development, have the same interests, she says. While they are very independent in their play, “I am always there and I can always take a break”. Having worked in publishing, she is used to constant interruptions and having people talking around her.

Finucane, who is involved in a programme at Limerick Institute of Technology for start-up companies, is irritated by a common perception that work-at-home mothers are not as serious about their businesses as men because their children always come first.

“I find that extremely annoying, considering the amount of work that I do,” she says. “It is fair enough that we prioritise our kids, but it does not mean the work doesn’t get done. It is about being effective.”

In terms of parenting and working at home, she focuses on time she and the girls spend together – “rather than having their days full of activities where they are away from the house and I have to drive them to this and to that.

“We do a lot of things together. For me it is important that we spend time, even doing chores together.” She also tries to set aside half an hour each day to do something with them that they choose, be it a puzzle or a game.

She says she is not very house proud but is keen on good food and cooks everything from scratch. She prepares a weekly menu and shops only for that menu. “It is not only cost effective but it means you always have what you need.”

Typical day: They get up about 7.30am and she squeezes in half an hour at the computer before the girls go to pre-school. Then she has two and a half hours to work before making dinner for the girls in the middle of the day. In the afternoon, she does about five hours, while they play, up to 6.30pm. After a supper “of leftovers” she might get in another hour’s work and again after their bedtime at 8.30pm.

Tips: Working in bursts is the key, she says, and being organised. “I try not to work on the weekends. The point of working at home is being able to spend time with your family.”

Learn to say no. “Because you are at home, your husband does tend to ask you to do a million different things – such as go to the bank. It is important to keep your focus on the job and learn to say no, which can be hard.”

Don’t get bogged down in housework. If you can afford it, get a cleaner – but personally she prefers to spend spare money on other things. “The house gets cleaned when people come for a visit.”

Time for self? “I have to force myself from the point of view that if I do this, I will be a better mum, a better wife, a better me.”

She tries to meet friends, go to the cinema and reads a lot. Her advice is see what “me time” works for you. “Find that thing that replenishes you.”

She also enjoys tending their large garden, including a big poly tunnel, and that is recreation, food production and family time all rolled into one.

Freelance graphic designer Susan Bell Flavin lives and works in Camolin, Co Wexford, with her husband, Eric, a stay-at-home father and part-time writer, and their children Belle (6), Una Fae (5), Evangeline (2) and Nathaniel (five months).

She does not believe anybody can work from home and be a parent at the same time. That’s why “Where’s your dad?” is the most uttered phrase in their house.

When you are working at home, some people have the notion that you can go to a yoga class in the morning, bake scones in the afternoon and fit your clients in around that, she says. You can’t. “Somebody working nine to five in an industrial estate in Sandyford does not want to hear you have just gone to your baby yoga.”

The close juxtaposition of parenting and professional roles takes its toll. “Sometimes, like today, the kids are out playing on the bouncy castle and they are bringing in rocks and stones and flowers to me and they are saying, ‘Come outside’, and I can’t – I want to. If I was working in an office somewhere, I would not feel such a bad mother.”

She believes the children are used to it. “But I don’t want them to grow up and think Mum always had her head in the computer – she was never there when we were having a picnic outside.”

A spare bedroom is her office and she can “lock” it by pulling a filing cabinet across the door. The children are fairly well trained to be quiet when she is on the phone. “Obviously the five month old does not adhere to that yet!”

Two of her daughters have juvenile arthritis, which necessitates hospital appointments in Dublin at least once a month and complicates the juggling.

Typical day: She showers, dresses and puts on make-up, before sitting down at her desk at 9am. “I don’t feel ready for the day unless I have a bit of mascara and lippy on.” In the dead of winter you might catch her in her pyjamas “but it doesn’t make you feel good”.

If she is working to a deadline, that project takes priority. She tries to limit e-mail checking and she takes breaks at 11am and from 1pm to 2pm. “I make myself finish at 5.30pm, even if I have work I could be doing – unless it is urgent.” She will work weekends, and all night if necessary, to meet deadlines. “I can’t say no to work.”

Tips: To make up for the chaos that is inevitable in family life, you have to be quite disciplined in between those spaces, she says. No matter how she is scheduling work, she always answers the phone. But if it turns out to be a friend or family, she will not have a long personal chat in the middle of the working day. “I’ll end up paying for it, working until 10 or 11 at night,” she says. “You are always borrowing from yourself – sometimes it is worth it, sometimes it is not.”

Time for self? She laughs at the very idea. But if she does find time, she enjoys pottering in the garden with the children or DIY with Eric, fixing up their old farmhouse. “I do find being out in nature incredibly therapeutic.”

Print designer Susannagh Grogan, works and lives in Killiney, Co Dublin, with her husband, Cormac, a consultant in customer care, and their son Gabriel (5).

“I definitely work full-time, but I am also a full-time mum, even though I have childcare once a week,” she says. “It is multi-tasking to the extreme.”

She worked as a freelancer before Gabriel arrived, so she is used to not letting herself be distracted by domestic chores – “my standard of housework guarantees that!”

Grogan rents a studio in the Dún Laoghaire Enterprise Centre about 15 minutes away, but still finds herself working at home half the time.

“You start at home and sometimes it is hard to go in,” she explains, sitting in the midst of her own range of scarves draped around her living room at home in Killiney, Co Dublin. “You don’t want to spend time travelling to and from the studio, wasting precious minutes.”

She hates to admit it, but the television is deployed if she has something urgent to do. “I have a whole lot of samples with me at the moment and I am just thinking this afternoon it might be a little film for Gabriel. We might get in a walk at some stage too.”

However, she says: “I could be working eight to eight and not here, which a lot of people have to do. At least I have got the flexibility, which is fantastic.”

Typical day: She plans work around sales trips and her son, who is in primary school until 1.15pm. “I have to be very flexible. It is a matter of knowing what I have to do each day and then something might come up with Gabriel – he might go on a play date and then I have a few extra hours.”

She also works after he has gone to bed, although “sometimes I am just knackered and don’t”. She retreats to the studio for creative work, particularly at weekends when Cormac is there to be with Gabriel.

Tips: Once known as “Post-it queen”, she thinks it’s important to take five minutes to write down tasks that need to be done. “I don’t always take my own advice, but I work better if I do.” Having back-up help with child-minding is essential, particularly for her as her husband is away a lot with his job. “My parents and friends are brilliant. At the beginning I hated asking friends to do something, but as long as it works both ways . . . ”

Time for self? She gets a kick from her work. “I am very focused on this at the moment – more so than I have been with my work probably ever in my life. I am really enjoying it. But if it all gets too much, I go to see friends.”