Working from home Archives

Due to the Movement Control Order, a lot of us have been subjected to working from home, and for those of us with families, it means working from home with kids. I have some experience in the area – I usually work from home once a week, and even when I’m at the office I’ve had either Eesa or Hudaa with me on most days. So when our social media manager asked me to share my working from home with kids tips to make into MCO content, I was more than happy to depart my wisdom *cue eyeroll*

Disclaimer – this is just what works for me, and a lot of the time, I don’t even manage to do all these. Sometimes, you just have to forego taking a shower in order to beat that deadline. Or you are so worn out from juggling so many hats that the last thing you want to do is wake up in the wee hours of the morning to get a chunk of work-time. Life goes on.

Be Flexible

The main thing I can advise people about working from home with kids is to be flexible. You will NOT get a solid 8 hours of work in like you do at the office. There is no 9-5. Of course you will try, but bear in mind that your working hours would more likely be spread out across the whole day and include so many more ‘breaks’ than you had planned. If you are working alone or are pretty independent from other departments in your company, this shouldn’t be much of a problem. However, if your work requires a lot of scheduled meetings/discussions/collaboration with others, it might be a bit harder for you. Tip 2 will address that issue.

Being flexible also means you are able to work from various locations in your house. Ideally, you would work at your dedicated workspace, whether it’s your dining table, or your home office space. But sometimes, your kids require (read: demand) your attention.

Some people may have kids who are older and understand boundaries better, but if you’re like me and have a baby, or a toddler, who have not developed enough self-restraint or comprehension of the phrase “mommy needs to do some work right now”, you will find that being flexible in the location of your workspace allows you to get more work done. Of course, this only works if you have a laptop or if you can work on your mobile phone. If your work is tethered to a PC, planning becomes even more crucial. As you go along, you can (hopefully) train your child to recognise boundaries better.

Have a plan

I find that having a plan for the day helps me arrange my schedule better. And planning doesn’t just include work – now that you’re working from home with kids, it also means planning for meals/cooking, planning for downtime with your kids, and planning for other home-related things like laundry, naptimes, cleaning, etc.

My method is quite loose (remember tip no.1!), and it involves listing down my work goals for the day or my work to-do list. Next, I identify tasks that have time constraints, namely deadlines and meetings/group discussion. Then I can make sure my day is geared towards setting myself up for as much success in achieving these highlighted tasks.

For example, if I have a conference call scheduled at 1pm, which is when we usually have lunch, I will make sure that the kids are fed and lunch is cleared up earlier, and that I spend at least 20 minutes entertaining the kids so they get their mommy time before I have to hole up in my room. The rest of the day is slipping in pockets of work in between so I can check them off the list.

Additionally, if you get derailed by the many, many breaks you are forced to take, having a plan or to-do list written down will make it easier to pick up where you left off and get right back on track as soon as your situation allows you to, instead of backtracking and wasting time gathering your work mojo.

Get backup

If your spouse is also working from home, then you’re lucky, Alhamdulillah! After listing down your work tasks for the day, I will usually let Shafiq know about any uninterrupted time I might need and vice versa. This allows us to take turns in attending to the kids while we chase that deadline or attend to that meeting.

If you are alone working at home with kids (LDR couples, single mothers, HUGE salute to you!), identify an activity that your child engages most in, and save that activity for when you really need it. And of course, when all else fails, Paw Patrol is hopefully just a click away.

Everything else

While those would be my top three tips, some other tips I find useful are:

Getting up earlier than your kids to get solid uninterrupted work time in
Try to make sure you get ready for the day – getting ready physically also helps you get into the work mindset. Take a shower and put on something other than your pyjamas. Make yourself a nice mug of coffee just like you would at the office
If you find yourself getting distracted by your phone, social media, etc, maybe use a timer or the Pomodoro method to break your work up into smaller chunks. The timer can also help train your kids to know when it’s working time and when you are allowed to take a break.
Make time for your kids – there’s only so much time they can leave you alone for. And really invest in that time – enjoy connecting with them and make it quality time. It might just help you destress from work too

Although to me working from home with kids seem like second nature, I hope these tips can give the bewildered and frustrated parent who is new to working from home some tools to make it through these strange times <3

It’s the 2nd week of the government imposed Movement Control Order. The Covid-19 cases are increasing exponentially worldwide, and Malaysia recorded it’s first few deaths too. The situation is definitely getting scarier, and is not helped by the fact that some people choose to flagrantly flout the MCO and still be outside unnecessarily. Honestly, what is their deal?? It’s also hard on those of us who have to fight tooth and nail to keep our parents isolated, indoors. Goodness knows they could be the stubbornest bunch of all. Anyways, here’s how things have been going on my end

Day 8 – Wednesday 25th March

Spent the morning discussing various work related things on Whatsapp and then waited for the PM’s announcement around lunch time.

The government announced that the MCO would be extended til 14th April. Although I was expecting this, and was happy as it was absolutely the right thing to do, I also couldn’t help but feel deflated. I think for the first week, the novelty of being at home with my family kept me in a kind of happy bubble. “2 weeks wasn’t that long anyway, right? Things would be back to normal in no time.” But the announcement definitely popped that bubble. And although my spirits are a bit dampened, I’m okay. I can’t imagine what people who are alone feel like. The ones who are far from their families. The ones who are not as fortunate as we are to have comfortable homes, stable income, sufficient food and enough entertainment to preoccupy us during these hard times. What kind of feels like a weird extended vacation at home for us, might feel like a prison sentence to others. May Allah help us all.

Shafiq’s shipment of plants came today, so we’ve added those to our little plant corner, which we’re still figuring out. Hope these babies thrive and don’t die on us!

Made sup daging today. well, tried to anyway. I simmered the beef for what seemed like ages and it just refused to soften. Also my ratio was wayyyy off – it was more like potato and carrot soup with bits of beef in. Plus I made way too much. we ended up freezing more than half of it. Oh well. Live and learn.

Day 9 – Thursday 26th March

Had a work meeting around 2pm so Shafiq made a quick lunch of nuggets and fried chicken for us. Got a decent amount of work in during the day. Shafiq went to the store to look for a few items, and asked if I wanted to go out and get some sun, as it had been more than a week since I last stepped out the front door. So I went for a tiny drive around the housing compound in the late afternoon sun. Spent a good 15 minuted just sat in the car parked in our parking space listening to a random talkshow on the radio and pretending like everything was normal. It was much needed. Even the short walk from our car to the apartment I took reeeaaaaly slowly savoring the outdoors.

Came back and found Shafiq reorganising the store room, which he had been planning on doing for a few days now. So we spent the entire evening clearing out old boxes and sorting through junk. It felt good to get that off the list, and to have a more organised and trimmed down storage corner. Dinner was butter chicken and rice which Shafiq made. Really miss spicier food tho! Having kids with us and being too lazy to make 2 separate menus means we eat whatever the kids can eat, which means no cili. Alhamdulillah ala kulli hal.

Shafiq has been telling me to pick a PS4 game for myself so after a few days of research i narrowed it down to three. My criteria was quite simple – no violence/gore/etc2, nothing scary, and simple-ish gameplay. Also I like puzzles and adventure so I veered mostly in that direction. The three that I narrowed down were Journey, The Talos Principle, and The Witness. Shafiq wasn’t too keen on Journey – he said it looked boring. The Talos Principle he didn’t have much to comment on, but he did seem intrigued by The Witness. So we were all set to buy it but then saw it was for like RM170. Change of plans lol. Journey was only RM55. Since it was my first game I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and afterwards maybe discover that I didn’t like it, or the controls were too hard etc. So journey it was. But since it was already midnight, banking was offline so in the end tak beli pun zzzz.

Day 10 – Friday 27th March

Kids woke up early, as usual, and after breakfast of cereal and apples dipped in yogurt I showered the kids and did a morning workout. I clicked on a random low-impact cardio workout on youtube from TheBodyProject, and I have to say I quite like the instructor. He is relaxed and has just the right amount of humility mixed with encouragement. Managed to do the full video which I was quite proud of! Lunch was paratha made into roti tampal coutesy of Shafiq. Heated up the leftover soup I made from the other day and added more beef to it. I din’t want the beef to take forever to cook and still be liat, so i googled how to tenderize beef and tried velveting it using baking soda. Worked a treat! The revamped soup was good, although a bit too salty for my tastebuds.

Day 11 – Saturday 28th March

Kind of a lazy Saturday. Slept in (well, as much as the kids let me) and had a breakfast of peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Was feeing very lethargic in the first half of the day, not sure if it was because I slept a bit late last night, or because I didn’t do my morning workout? Anyway. Spent a lot of the morning lying on the sofa. Shafiq has been craving nasi kandar/ kari mamak for a while so we decided to order lunch and dinner. I don’t know what I was expecting but the kari kambing was not what I had in mind – obviously it was kari mamak not kari melayu haha. I planned on washing all the curtains today, but like I said, lazy saturday, so I haven’t done that yet. Maybe tomorrow. Started playing Journey – I quite like it, the graphics are beautiful and the physics are quite realistic, but I’m not so sure about the gameplay. It seems a little simplistic, like there’s always something helping you out. I don’t know tho, I’ve only played up to chapter 3. We’ll see how it goes.

Day 12 – Sunday 29 March

Finally got around to washing the curtains today, and hemmed them as well since they were too long. Accidentally hemmed one pair too short but oh well. Felt like eating cucur so I looked up a recipe, but after mixing everything, the batter seemed so thick. so i added more and more water but when I tried frying them, they basically turned into one big flat mess. So I had to add flour and more fish powder, basically doubling the recipe. Way too much cucur so we had those for lunch. hopefully will get around to cleaning the balconies today or tomorrow. But not sure about tomorrow since I plan on fasting. We’ll see how that goes too, inshaAllah

Maryam Hmz

Posts tagged: Working from home

Tips for working from home with little kids