The Ambiguous Path Home

 

                            

‘Be where you are or you will miss your life’ -  Buddha

How is it possible today to contribute a hundred percent to your home and work when both the entities have merged into a big confusing mesh? What changes can we make to reach the right balance?

Everyone is walking the tight rope more than ever, but there is an upside in it all.

Working parents and dads especially, in large metros specifically, get the unique opportunity to share time with their children, schooling or playing with them.

Parents actually have more time on your hands. Gone are the days of preparing multiple tiffins, waterbags schoolbags, hair plaits, polished shoes, costumes for stage and games, ironed uniforms, drops to bustops and school runs, spending a couple of hours travelling and then settling down to work. A mindboggling list of activities and stress in a mere 2 or 3 hours, no more exist.

Getting to wear comfortable clothing, not having to pay bus fees or fuel for your vehicles, close to no expenses in family entertainment arena, are certainly great perks.

The downside appears simply huge in comparison.

Days on end with nowhere to go.Children and their demands physically occupying every corner of your waking hours.Every member having computers and connectivity issues.Health safety concerns at playtime and concern for health of the house help. The unending toggles between work and home causing temper flare-ups and stress, the list is never ending. So here are some practices to implement, to help ease your work day.

1. When you are working you have to be at work: Wherever you are working, ensure that you have a space however small as your home office. A place you have to withdraw to and work , literally with your back to the wall not door.

2. Children also require home school places: they have to relate to going to that space each day for the required time enforcing the seriousness of schooling time. The best way to make children good is keeping them happy.

3. Schedule Schedule and Reschedule: The office white board now moves to home with the day’s flowchart and timetable, physically and visually clear for kids near their workspaces and adults too. Ensure your children understand the timetable, and abide by it. It is a ‘work in progress’ so no worries when it fails, factor in changes, learnings , reset and go again, till it is a familiar routine day, like the one we all had earlier...

4. Include Schedule Breaks: Lunch breaks ,coffee and snack breaks, outdoor playtime, and home activity also factor in for all. Breaks coinciding with each other’s work patterns, can be used for other purposes too, to assist in school work, do an errand, make an urgent personal phone call or just make a quick snack.

5.Continue tasks of old routine: Morning wakeup school time continues, the schoolbags have to packed and homeworks completed the night before. Preferably snack boxes have to also be packed in the mornings, so that a hungry child does not invade your office space.

5.Accept help: If you can afford it, hire house help. Most Indian households have that luxury. An extra pair of helping hands is magical. Include them in the discipline of your schedule. Ensure that they call or watsapp for urgent kitchen or task queries. If you cannot close your door for important calls, place a clearly visible stop or OK signal of any sort on your table so that people walking in know not to talk or disturb.

6.Optimize use of the extra hour gained: it can be used to have breakfast together, plan work for your house help, and write additional daily instructions for children on home activity time and errands around the house.

 7.Teach children to help you: it contributes to character building. Make some tasks fun and others responsible. Watering plants, cleaning toys, keeping school space organized should be alternated with more fun activities and doing T.V Guided physical exercises by themselves to keep them occupied, responsible, and fit. Empathy in understanding their situation will help you help them.

5.Be frank with your team and boss on your situation. Convey clearly the preference of time for important team calls and presentation meetings. No matter what precautions you take your workspace is likely to get invaded once in a while. Train yourself to deal with it calmly, controlling language and temper on office zoom calls. If children go out for play time use that quality time to finish important team calls and work.

6. Have a Common understanding with your team on EOD: Ideally, try not be at work, during both the lunch and dinner every day. Family meal time has to be adhered to once a day at least. If possible work after dinner, so that only you are affected.

7.Practice constructive criticism: Both parents being at home is a luxury most children have not experienced for a long time, dynamics on permissions to do things like finishing homework before play, viewing TV or playing video games, have to reconveyed to them in firm but kind tones, then scheduled.

Finally if it is a two parent unit, a lot can be achieved with little time. Work out how to divide and rule your roost. Both are equal stakeholders. Share your concerns of work schedule clashing with other activities, or inability to be at mealtime as, to arrive at a win-win situation.

Your children need your presence more than your presents, do not squander away this precious time, in a state of ‘perpetual distraction and stress’.

#WFH #Family #Schedule #Empathy #understanding #zoom #stress