Work Life Balance {The Ordinary Moments}

Welcome back to another week of the Ordinary Moments. If you haven’t joined in before this is a weekly linky that launches every Sunday morning and is open until midnight on the following Saturday. It’s a linky that celebrates any ordinary moments in your life – or the not so ordinary some weeks too. Basically – anything goes. I’ll be sharing and commenting on the posts that are linked up during the week and there’s a badge at the bottom of the post if you’d like to add it to yours too.

Work Life Balance {The Ordinary Moments}

I was sitting down to write this week’s Ordinary Moments post and I realised that I actually spend more time on a typical week working than I do with the children, creating the ordinary moments that I share every week. But, that isn’t as bad as it sounds – as it’s the same with most families – and it means that we can pack as much fun stuff as we can into the few hours after school and at the weekends. We really do live for the school holidays too.

But, since I gave up my day job nearly two and a half years ago – yep, it’s been that long! – I have felt like I’ve been juggling plates, trying to work out what to do with my time, how to be most productive and how to manage fitting in all my roles as a parent, as a self employed work from home person and as me, Donna.

I’ve realised now, in the last week since the children went back to school, that I actually feel like I have all my ducks in a row. I feel like I have enough time in the day and I feel like as a family we have a really good balance of work, school, fun stuff, house stuff and adventures. It feels like, finally, every aspect of life has come together. And it feels good.

I have a constant work/life to do list and each week the list gets updated. Each day I have things I need to get done that day but I also run errands, go to the gym, go for a walk and do little things for me – paint my nails, have a day time bath in absolute peace or sit and read a couple of chapters of my book.

Around that I work. I work in productive chunks, ticking jobs off the list, dipping into social media and taking photos in bulk. I’ve found a nice working routine that works for me.

I pick the children up from school in the afternoons and we do things like baking, crafts, play games and homework. But, I do sometimes have to work in the afternoons – my job is full time but I try and fit it in around the children as much as possible but it really isn’t possible to fit full time work into school hours. So, one afternoon a week, less if I can help it, I will work at the dining table whilst the children play happily together. I’m there if they need me, they know they can be around me, talk to me, have cuddles and pretty much do whatever they like but, I’m working too and they understand that.

I still work in the evenings too which now is more of a habit than anything and I switch off every once in a while to watch a movie, have friends or family round or go out. I don’t tend to work during the day at weekends but I am always on social media – that side of this job just never stops.

The children know all about my job. They know I write about things, I take photos of things and that my job not only means we go on days out and do fun things but it also means that I am always there. I drop them off at school, I pick them up from school and have dinner with them in the evening. That for me is the best part of doing the job that I do and now, two and a half years after becoming fully self employed, I feel like I’m no longer winging it. I am doing a job that I am not only comfortable doing but confident in doing. Twenty years after getting my very first job, I finally have a decent work life balance. Life is good.

The Ordinary Moments

If you have an ordinary moment this week, come and link up – I’m looking forward to reading the moments that you share and will comment and share them on Twitter through the course of the week. Thanks so much for taking part.

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4 Comments

  1. Your work-life balance sounds perfect these days. For the first time today I managed to combine parenting with peaceful relaxation (see my linked post for further info) and it felt GREAT to have a little me time combined with a little girly time.

  2. You seem to have really mastered your work/home life balance.

    I still struggle as I end up getting the housework sorked in the day and work at night as its the habit I can’t seem to break… Oh and Netflix is a downfall for me

    1. We have a cleaner who comes once a week which really helps and I do housework through the day to break up work. I give myself an hour of Netflix before school pickup whilst I do mundane blog stuff! x

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