With the Beans now back at school at I’m slowly returning to some form of routine, it’s only been three days but I’m hoping to get myself back to my ‘organised self’ that I used to pride myself on back in the day when I worked full time in an office. Whenever I updated my CV, I used to rank organisational skills quite highly but adding children to the mix kind of threw me off balance.
I have been a work-from-home Mum since Little Bean was a baby and I began this blog. Obviously it didn’t start out as a job but I had other work-from-home positions in the beginning to enable me to stay at home with Little Bean rather than sending her to a childminder. I felt lucky that I was able to make that decision but it hasn’t always been easy. You have to be quite strict with yourself when you work from home, it can be so easy to get carried away with a task that you forget to switch off and return to ‘Mum/Wife’ mode. In the days before children I would aim to go to bed around 10pm but these days it’s nearer to 12 or 1am, hence the bags under the eyes look I tend to sport these days.
A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend about working from home and they asked me if I missed ‘going to work’. I contemplated it for a few minutes before answering, I miss aspects of it. I miss having a laugh with my work colleagues, I sometimes miss having real adult conversations and the 9-5 knowing that I can switch off, go home and relax for the evening but on the plus side, I can choose my hours now, I can take the day off whenever I want to. I can attend all of my children’s school events as well as drop them off and pick them up every single day, I can be the one to see the pride on their face as they run out of school with a ‘Well Done’ sticker or a Certificate and I can be the one to hug them better after a bad day. Perhaps the most surprising thing I miss about going to a place of work is having a uniform, I feel like I waste so much time in a morning trying to decide what to wear. When I was in a full-time job, I wore a uniform, I felt smart, part of a team and it put me into ‘work mode’ and I didn’t have to think about what to wear that day. I just got dressed and went on my way. With Jelly Bean now doing three full days at preschool I am getting more work time at home so I’m hoping to be more productive with my days and I have seriously contemplated a work-from-home uniform so that I and the children recognise when Mummy is in work mode, even something as simple as this cotton polo shirt from Engelbert Strauss in my blog colour, I could even have it embroidered with my blog logo to wear to events so that people can recognise me easily.
Having worked from home for over 8 years now I think I would find it quite strange and really rather daunting to return to a place of work and it would need to be a job that could fit around the children, allowing me to be at home during the holidays. In this instance I’m guessing that rules out most things apart from working in a school and actually that idea doesn’t fill me with dread. I have another year before Jelly Bean starts school properly so I fully intend to make the most of my days at home with him and work as hard as I can when the Beans are at work. I’m proud of what I have achieved over the last 8 years so I’m not about to give it up so easily, I like the life that has been carved out for me.