Working from home and blogging full time is a lot! I had been hoping to be able to do this full time for quite some time now and a couple of months ago I took a risk and quit my part time evening job in a supermarket. I hated it. I hated being away from John and Erin and I hated being restricted in what I could and couldn’t do. I never wanted to go back to work after maternity leave and I always knew deep down it wasn’t for me.
Since I started working from home finding that perfect balance has been hard. I had planned on having ‘work’ evenings like I would have had I stayed at the supermarket making pizzas. That plan didn’t even work for the first week. Erin’s sleeping patterns change all of the time so I can never stick to set working times. Also, John comes home from work at different times each day so I have to work around him most of the time.
At the minute I tend to work most days. I am my own worst enemy really as I try to get as much done as possible. I am always trying to scheduled as in advance as possible. I want to not have to worry about whether or not I can get a review posted in time and I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not I actually have a post scheduled for the next day. Right now, I’m trying to get ahead so that I can take some time off when we go to Centre Parcs in October. I don’t want to have to slave away every single evening and that’s why I wanted to work for myself in the first place.
When I made the decision to work full time from home and make blogging my job, I had a lot I wanted to do. I changed the look of my blog, changed how each post looked and made so many other little changes. However, this has meant a lot of behind the scenes work. I am now trying to go back and spruce up my old posts, add in featured and pinnable images, add in tags and also add in any relevant links. I only manage to get a few posts a week done so I have a lot of work ahead of me still with this.
Finding a nice balance between work and family life is definitely not easy. I certainly push myself as hard as I can sometimes but I also know when I need a night off. I am so lucky that I can decide to not work now and again if I don’t want to, or if I’m not feeling well. Working so hard the rest of the time makes the days off feel great. Working from home suits as much better as a family than me going out to work ever would!
If you work from home, what advice would you give to get the perfect balance?