Monday Morning

 For any day, I'm doing pretty good. 

For a Monday, I'm doing amazing.

Transitioning from the weekend is a bit rough for me, so the fact that I'm on my laptop typing by 10:29 is amazing. I have a list, and I'm staying focused.

I just want to write for a minute about how to stay focused. I realized this was a big question / problem for me, so I decided to write a piece on it. Not because I'm an expert, but because I'm obviously not. I made up a form and shared it on the course platform, linkedin, and facebook. I've gotten enough responses (17) to at least have some good quotes and see some patterns. I'd love to see more - but unsure how to do that. Anyway, most of the responses followed the same pattern: having an office where you can shut the door and have a separation from the family responsibilities. A lot mentioned earbuds to get rid of distracting noise (this is me - I seriously respond to any noise - it's so hard for me). And then there was one outlier - a lady who works at her kitchen table with her kids being home. With them working at the table. She even said that she has an uncanny ability to block out noice. She sometimes gets in trouble for this in relationships, because she can block out whole conversations. But in working from home, it's something of a superpower.

The other thing that's come up in a few is a conversation that has happened with kids of parents that work from home - going over expectations and boundaries. The kids are well aware that the parent is working, and so don't disturb them. I think this is what is missing if I'm going to be working at all when the kids are at home, and definitely for the summer. We need to talk about what that will look like with me working, and how they should arrange their time. Which brings me to...

I can't do it all. I can't hit a mark of getting work done and be at their beck and call to help them. It's just not possible. When I'm on "work" - I need to work, and give that my focus. When the tasks for the job are done, I can switch to "mom" mode, and jump from task to task (b/c that actually works for the house - jumping from laundry, to meal planning to helping Chaim practice guitar and back to laundry and over to a few more tasks for the day). 

OR...and this is where I'm not quite to...because I still need to just work on hitting close to 25 hours / week of focused copywriting...but it makes me wonder if I've been approaching mom as a scattered job, when really it should be a focused job. That might be a game changer. I mean - couldn't every job be super scattered if we allow it to? Is being a mom scattered by definition - or is it because I have a hard time focusing that it seems all over the place? I think once I've completed the stay-at-home writing piece and worked on that, it might be time to evaluate my "out-of-work" hours and routine. 

Which means - I have room to improve. All. Over. The. Place. Like - everywhere.