How I Manage My Time From Working An 8-hour Job To Working From Home

“Time management requires self-discipline, self-mastery and self-control more than anything else.” – Brian Tracy

Managing my time working from home is a big challenge coming from fifteen years working an 8-hour job. My body clock and rhythms were used to working in an office and it was not easy to get myself off-cycle. It requires a lot of discipline but I managed to train myself to adjust my body clock slowly and use my time effectively.

Without a helper nor a Yaya, doing household chores, taking care of the kids and doing my work as a Financial Consultant are most or all of the time, overwhelming.  I have tried different set-ups but I learned that the main key is to work where my time actually goes.

Believe me when I say, as I am writing this blog, my four-year-old son is crying in the background because he wants to use my cellphone but I will not allow him. He can only use gadgets on Friday nights and Saturdays. Luckily, my two-month-old baby is peacefully sleeping in his crib.

Whenever I do my work and my preschooler is acting up or my baby is crying, I do not call it ‘distraction’. I call it ‘time-out’ because at the end of the day my sons are my priorities. I just stay focused and remain faithful to whatever I am doing and I always make sure to finish it.

Going back, here are some of the set-ups that I tried, before I am finally able to manipulate my time:

1. TO-DO LIST. Though this one helped me when I was still in corporate, it became tedious when I worked at home. My to-do list has everything I need to do the following day - from the moment I wake up until the time I sleep. I have a task every hour including my me-time. It was good at first but I eventually got bored writing my everyday to-do-list and if I miss out one task, I feel so guilty it makes me feel unproductive.

2. 50-50. I do all my household chores in the morning and do all my financial consultancy work in the afternoon. The downside – this routine makes me feel so tired to still work in the afternoon because I am already physically exhausted after doing my morning routine.

3. DEDICATE. “Messy house, messy mind.” I have to be honest with myself, I cannot think right if the house is messy so I always make sure that cleaning the house is part of my daily activities. What I initially did was dedicate one day for general cleaning and do everything else for the rest of the week. For example, if my general cleaning schedule is on a Saturday, then that leaves the other days as my non-cleaning days. When Saturday comes, sometimes I feel tired before I even start because I know it will be an exhausting day of cleaning. This set-up leaves the house messy all the time.

4. A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING. I am a very hands-on person and I always want my surroundings organized. Otherwise, I will cram the whole week, and feel overwhelmed and sad. And that is what I am avoiding because unhappy mom means unhappy home. Therefore, I learned the trick of doing a little bit of everything in a week following my 9:00am to 6:00pm office schedule when I was still working full time. I got the whole week organizing the house and all the things I needed to do.

Early in the morning, I do the household chores and sneak in my me-time. From 9:00am to 6:00pm I do my financial consultancy work and I take care of my little loves in between. If they need me, I drop whatever I am doing to attend to their needs. Applying this set-up enables me to find time to cook, do the laundry, clean the house and do other household chores. I focus on one area a day to ensure no areas of the house are missed. But this would mean waking up at 4:00am to have my first me-time of the day for at least 30 minutes because at 4:30am, the battle begins: