The summer holidays are just around the corner again! I don’t know about you but to me it sometimes feels like my kids are off school more than they are actually there.
Added to this, more of us than ever are working from home, so there is no escaping to the office! So how do you juggle spending time with your children and keeping them happy but also working and getting what you need to done?
Here are our top tips:
- Get up an hour earlier and get some work done before the kids get up, or work after the kids have gone to bed.
- Find a childcare buddy – someone who can have your kids for a few days and you’ll have theirs, so you can both get some work done.
- Look at holiday clubs in your area. There are some great holiday clubs out there, the children have fun and meet some new friends and you can get a productive day of work done without interruption.
- Ask grandparents to help out if they can – according to a study grandparents who babysit tend to live longer https://dailyhealthpost.com/grandparents-babysitting-grandkids-live-longer sell them the benefits – you’re actually helping them, haha 🙂 Plus they could be entitled to NI credits which could top up their income in retirement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/looking-after-the-grandchildren-make-sure-it-counts-towards-your-state-pension double win!
- Set expectations – let your customers know when you are and aren’t working.
- If trying to arrange meetings, do your customers have children too? – if so meet with the kids, go to the park or a child friendly place so the kids can play together, and you can cover what you need to.
- Set boundaries with the kids (if they are old enough to understand), explain that you are having some work time, so they’ll have to occupy themselves for a little while, but once you have finished you’ll do something together.
- Have a plan of what you’d like to achieve over the holidays – both workwise and things you’d like to do with the kids. Try to plan so you can cover all of these things – prioritise the work stuff to ensure you get everything you need to do done and leave the stuff that can wait until the kids are back at school, so you don’t feel guilty when you can’t cross everything off on your to do list.
- Delegate – what work things can you delegate? Look through your to do list and delegate everything that you can. Yes, it may cost you some money, but it will give you precious time back with your kids and put less pressure on yourself to get everything done.
Working mainly with other parents I know most of our clients are in a similar position, so that really does take the pressure off (thank you all for being so understanding). Ultimately though I’m sure most of us set up our own business for similar reasons and being able to be flexible over the holidays was one of them. Our clients will respect that fact and realistically we all probably put more pressure on ourselves than necessary.
Wishing you all a fantastic summer holiday. Hope you get to make some amazing memories with your little ones, and also get a chunk of your to do list crossed off. If all fails and things do not go to plan, don’t stress – grab the wine (or gin) and go with the flow, tomorrow is another day!
If you’d like to take the stress of your accounts away over the holidays (and beyond) drop us an email to see how we can help hello@pinkpigfinancials.co.uk or visit our get started page.
