and the willpower it will take to succeed – and that means taking time to explain what’s happening. “Be overly communicative and set boundaries,” says Tonya Dalton, a productivity consultant in Ashville, North Carolina in the US. Being transparent about every family member’s schedule can make it easier for children to understand when you’re off limits, she explains. “It’s okay if you want to talk to your kids to take your mind off work, but it needs to be siloed to work breaks.” Scheduling is vital, but when it comes to setting out your timetable, don’t try to mimic your day at the office; it’s important to acknowledge that the situation has changed. Instead, create a daily plan for the entire family that includes work and school schedules, and make it easily visible to everyone, says Holland Haiis, a New York-based professional speaker focusing on professional development and human connection. “It lets everyone know what they can expect next in this new environment where everything feels a little different.” For Ingrid Jansen, committing her husband and two children to the same weekday routine is making it easier for the entire family to adjust. “We recently agreed on a daily schedule that involves having breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time daily, adding in two exercise breaks with walking and cycling… and we are adding in time for chores,” says Jansen, the founder of an online de-cluttering business who is based in London. (Jansen spoke to the BBC before new restrictions came in limiting people to one external exercise period per day.) For parents with younger children, consider an early morning work shift before ‘school hours’ begin, suggests Roberta Andrade, who runs a business organising people’s homes in São Paolo, Brazil. She now lets her children sleep in until 0900 to allow time for her own work rather than
rushing them off to eat breakfast. With a couple of hours of work already under her belt, it makes it easy to take a break mid-morning to help the children with their schoolwork. “I am now in the process of redesigning our habits and being available to them in the mornings,” says Andrade. Swap In And Out With Your Spouse With schools and offices closed, parents may well find that their task list has gone up, not down. Some will be adapting to working from home for the first time, with the stresses and tech woes that might bring. Many will be navigating their first attempt at home-schooling as well as monitoring headlines for the latest developments, worrying about relatives and figuring out the best way to keep the kitchen cupboards stocked. Yet too much multitasking - like trying to work and oversee homework at the same time - can reduce a person’s ability to focus on a specific task. Creating windows for productivity is one option; if both parents are working, divide up the day into blocks that give one parent space away from the children at a time. Allocating each person time to concentrate solely on work ensures everyone gets key tasks done without resentment, says Claudia Gladish, a skincare line founder in Kentfield, California who is married with two young children. She and her partner have come up with a schedule swapping in and out of childcare duties in a way that allows each longer gaps of dedicated work time. “It’s the only way for us to not have one person fall behind more than the other,” she explains. That’s more of a risk for women than men, data from a German study from the Hans Böckler Foundation shows. Despite parenting and household responsibilities becoming
continued on page 8
7
September 2020 | The Business Review
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online