I've been doing the full time mama thing for half a year, now.
Along with being a full time mama, I'm juggling several side gigs and ambitions. I titled this post "working from home," but I'm never quite sure if that is what I'm really doing or not.
I'm putting in the time. I'm blogging. I'm building my workshop business. I'm selling things in my shop. I'm fulfilling my role on the Project Life Creative Team. I'm committed to all of these things and I'm not doing any of it "just for fun."
Still, I have trouble viewing this conglomeration of work-related activities as a "job."
I want to get there. I want to take all of this more seriously and to approach it with greater dedication and some degree of strategy. But there is this giant issue looming. It's called time management.
The idea of time management related to this non-job of mine is kind of a joke. Some weeks I have it all together and other weeks are more like disasters. There are too many variables. There is too little structure. The constants in my life are an almost-three-year-old and an almost-one-year-old. Let's just say they are unpredictable.
If I really want to be more committed to this creative career path, I need to build some hours of work time into my daily or weekly schedule. Hours to work away from the house or, at least, away from the boys. To be honest, I'm not sure if that's what I want. I wanted to stay home with my kiddos because I wanted to spend more time with them. I love that my variety of side gigs act as an outlet for my creative side and for all of the parts of me that are "me as me" vs. "me as mama." But I also like that I can fit them into the minutes and occasional hours that I have available without taking away time from my role as mom.
On the flip side of all of this, I feel like I am continually getting better at all of my creative roles. I feel like I have been more honest in my writing and shared more valuable content over the last six months than I have in previous months and years. My Project Life pages feel happy and true to my design aesthetic. Overall, things are just coming together a lot easier than they used to and feel like they are headed in the direction that I want them to go.
Not only has my work improved over the past six months, but I have also become much more efficient. Working among the chaos of life at home has forced me to figure out ways to get things done in the windows of time that are available.
To sum this all up, "working from home" is going about as well as can be expected when one has their hands full with kids and isn't really sure how seriously she wants to take this "work" stuff anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment