Come the weekend, or when heading home for the day, I’ve heard corporate women talk about switching to “mom mode”. One of the things about working at home is that that switch has to happen frequently, quickly and effectively. And sometimes it’s hard.
I can be in the middle of a detailed e-mail to a customer when my ten year old blurts out a “pressing” question. I will ask him to wait until I finish what I’m doing before I answer his concern, but then, while I shift into mom mode, the creative juices that were stimulated by that client communication are shunted into the holding arena, where they seem to slowly dissipate. So, when I return to entrepreneur-status, the ideas aren’t as sharp, aren’t quite as quick to take form, as before the mom activity. I had had a great idea of a next step in my business, but now it seems slightly fuzzy. Does that ever happen to you?
Am I aggravated? Maybe – just a little. But that is exactly WHY I choose to be a work at home mom, and I’m well-served to remember that. I want to be the one to address my child’s concerns, and I forgo a traditional career where I can focus during work hours more exclusively on the advancement of my business because I have consciously made that choice.
Of course, some work at home situations lend themselves to this switching back and forth more readily than others. In fact, one of my early work at home endeavors was doing professional research from home. But it required long stretches of deep concentration and uninterrupted work. So, with young children, it wasn’t feasible unless there was someone else available to provide childcare. It just wasn’t the work at home fit that I wanted, and I was very happy to later find an option that allowed the transition to mom mode as needed. These interruptions still impede the flow of work, of course, but I’m very happy to have found work at home that can survive these interruptions.
I know one mom with a busy, active home-based business who even posted this above her desk: “Interruptions Are My Job”!
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