Working hours - ideas needed please

[PuzzlingRecluse]

Hi All
I’m hoping that the collective wisdom can help with some ideas please.

I’m a single mum to 6 year old, I have no family support.I need to work full time, 37.5 hours, 3 days a week in base, 45 min commute each way. although my goal is to be working 30 hours employed & have my own little business on the side in 5 years. Right now I’m burnt out, off with stress & anxiety, which is mostly due to work. I’m working with my employers to try to resolve / remove stressful aspects of work. As a side issue I’m struggling with work life balance & my working hours.

please can you give me some ideas of working patterns that I can consider / propose to help? I’m going round in circles with it.

needs to be 37.5 hours plus 30 min lunch breaks. No weekends.
I have my little boy Thursday 1500-Monday 0900.
school drop off & collection Friday
wrap around care not currently available ( huge waiting list)

ideas appreciated 😊

Are you able to work longer days on Mon, Tue and Wed (say 9 hours?) and then 2 shorter days Thu and Fri when you have your child?

From what you are saying, it sounds like Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, you don't have your child at all in the evenings/overnights. If that's the case, yes, compress your hours to these days, so you could work say, 8am-6:30pm (10 hours per day) then split the remaining 7.5 hours across school hours on Thursday/Friday allowing time for a commute. Work Th/F from home and in the office the other 3 days.

Ask an ai or chat gpt, that's what I did. I just told it something similar to your OP and it worked out a suggested pattern. I currently do 37.5 hours with wednesday afternoon off by doing two long days in the week

Monday: 10-6 (7.5 hours)
Tuesday: 8-6 (9.5hours)
Wed: 8-5.30(9hours)
Thurs: 8- 2.30 wfh (6hours)
Fri 9.30-2.30 wfh ( 5.5 hrs)

Thanks everyone, appreciate the ideas. I did ask ChatGPT it got confused & couldn’t do it. I think I frustrated it abit with my requirements!

Can you work from home? It will be tiring but short term you could log in later in the evening to make up some hours? That works well for some families I know. Like after bedtime? Lunch taken for school collection and then log back in, work until dinner and back on again after bed?

For 2 days are you wfh? I wouldn't be afraid to ask for extra wfh days. Just because everyone else isn't doing it doesn't mean you can't ask for it

Also would they let you tag your lunch break on to the end of the day or do they insist on lunch break?

Thanks everyone, I’m not sure if I can tag my break at end of day or wfh more but I will definitely ask.

This looks spot on to me.