Share these Productivity Tips for Working at Home with Kids and Pets

The spread of coronavirus has forced parents far and wide to move work from the office to their homes. It can be a challenge to try to stay productive while working from home, especially with children or noisy pets. If you find yourself in that situation, here are some tips that can help.

• Create a Schedule – Kids do better and behave better when they know what to expect. Let them know what your meeting schedule looks like, when quiet time will be, and when they will need to be doing an activity. Let them know when lunch and snack time will be so they’re not tugging on you.
• Keep Kids Entertained – Getting blocks of time where you can knock out projects, whether 15 minutes or an hour, is heavily dependent on ensuring you can keep the kids entertained. Plan activities ahead of your workday.
• Separate Roles – If you don’t make a conscious effort to separate both the role of parent and businessperson, you will most likely never fully feel like you are doing either particularly well. If you can, set up a special place in your home that will be your workspace. This will help you separate work and home time, enabling you to focus on work when you are in this space.
• Get Help If Necessary – First, a partner or spouse can be a wonderful source of additional support with kids. As much as possible try to take turns watching the kids in between projects and work calls. Sometimes additional help is needed. Working from home doesn’t necessarily translate into not needing childcare, at least not every day.
• Manage Expectations – Often, simply helping a boss or coworker know what to expect can save you both a lot of grief. If you have young kids that need a lot of attention, for example, working with your manager to set realistic and somewhat flexible deadlines (plus or minus a few hours to account for tending to children) is usually much better received when you set that expectation ahead of time.
• Giving Pets Attention – Much like kids, people find that if they make sure their pets have enough attention, they tend to behave better and create fewer inopportune distractions. A well-placed distraction for your pet can make all the difference.

Working from home with children or pets (or both) can be challenging, especially in this uncertain time. While it might be difficult, keep in mind that continuing to work from home right now can be the difference that keeps employees safe and organizations operating.

Make sure your remote workers have the technology they need to stay productive… Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.