Anybody else struggle with working from home?

[staranise]

As in, I'm meant to be working right now and am paying a fortune in childcare to enable me to do so but just can't get motivated, especially when I work sitting on my bed plus keep jumping up and down to put another load of washing on, tidy up some toys etc etc.

I normaly ban MN on work days but feeling weak today...

Wouldlove some colleagues to keep me focussed...

Must guiltily confess that I am supposed to be working on a tight deadline (doing freelance research for a client) and instead I am on active conversations on Mumsnet!

It's hard isn't it? Do you work completely from home? I do three days a week and always feel especially bad on the days DD's are at nursery.

Am pregnant as well which isn't helping me to focus when what I really want to do is sleep and eat!

I find it very hard to stay focused. I have a deadline and only now have I actually got stuff done, I seem to need to leave everything until it's nearly too late to give me the motivation to do it, which is stupid and means I achieve far less. I need guidance. I am weak.

I can only work if I have a strict deadline - otherwise I faff about

I work out how much my childcare is costing me for the few hours a week I have it. If I find myself flagging I remind myself that an hour arsing about doing nothing costs me ££££ in childcare. It does motivate me to get something done that's 'worth' that much.

ooh, glad I'm not the only one. I'm pregnant too, which certainly doesn't help with concentration.

I work part-time variable hours but I only have a nanny for one day a week and I do the rest in the evenings and at the weekends, which is a real pain when I have a lot on, like now.

I have 90 mins before the nanny leaves and 41 pages left to edit...had better get on with it...

Great thread! I am definitely with you all. Don't you also find the temptation not to eat everything in the house is as hard as not looking at things online? And my other problem is that feeling of rushing to drop DC off and pick them up - always comes just when things are flowing on the writing front! I suppose the juggle is never easy

Staranise when are you due? I need to find out about maternity allowance for self-employed people at some point, was an employee during last pregnancy. Bracing myself for it to be a tiny amount.

Nellie so with you on the flowing/pick up problem! My drive to nursery is only 10 minutes (unless I get stuck behind a tractor) but I always seem to be screeching into the car park!

The only thing I find helps is telling the client in the morning what I intend to achieve that day. I may end up doing it in a mad spurt at the end of the day but at least I feel I have to deliver certain things. Otherwise with vague deadlines and a long timescale to do a project, everything goes to pot. And then I feel guilty .

Me too. I need to work in an office sometimes, I think. I also need to filter out MN for a while.

I think we need a Working-at-home equivalent of the flylady threads - everyone go and do 30mins boring stuff now and then come back and report...or a homeworking staffroom?

definitely stealthsqiggle, I'm quite good at very short deadlines of eg, 30 mins and then I'm allowed to do something fun! I find with editing I need frequent breaks anyway, otherwise i go cross-eyed!

Eating: have so far eaten half a packet of kettle crisps and a large packet of jelly dinosaurs today. Great pregnancy diet!

hattyyellow - people here have been v helpful re. what your'e entitled to - it's all new to me as well as we lived in Spain when I was pg with my older DDs. If you are a class two contributor, then you get maternity allowance of £117 a week or 90% of your income, whatever is the lowest amount. Am debating when to give up as am finding it really hard juggling work and children and pg at the moment but then, don't want to lose my clients. However my main client is an agency who won't mind if I stop for a few months I think. What will you do?

forgot to say, am due early december (15 weeks at the moment). They calculate MA when you're 25 weeks

yes, I find it hard. Partly because I don't much like my work and I can always just do something else online (or load the dishwasher or whatever!).

Would love a job in an office, working with people and all that, but it just wouldn't really fit in with the rest of my life.

I'm with you, girls! Spent the world's most unproductive day today, got about an hour's worth of work done, spent the rest of the time surfing mn and then various other sites.Can't even say I put on the washing, our star nanny does all that saying "no, no, you go and work."
What did people do before the internet? Probably a lot, ie wrote the Divine Comedy, painted Mona Lisa. These days they'd all be surfing away
I am not pg so have no excuse, though am knackered because dd2 gets us up at 5.30 every morning
I agree, maybe we should unite here and agree if we see anyone mnetting except at agreed hours to tap them firmly on the wrists!

Yes, I've worked from home for 6 years now and I still waste precious work time getting distracted.

I work at home all day - in fact now I should be checking an important piece of work for a 9.00 am deadline and I'm sitting here reading this thread.

Sometimes it's so hard, I try and fit all my work in during the school day so I can have evenings free but sometimes it doesn't work that way. I try and force myself to do an hour's solid work and then take a ten minute break but I lack will power and always find something else to do.

Male half of JoDivine here. I have a 'normal' day job as well as building our jodivine.com website in the evenings.

My day job allows me to work at home. Usually it works out OK - I can focus,but sometimes the internet is too great a distraction. At times, I have turned it off, walked to a different room and used the laptop there, to stop the distractions. Even better, sitting down with a piece of paper and working it out can be hugely productive (and I'm a computer programmer!).

Kids have been the biggest distraction at times. I am lucky that I have a basement to work in and a decent pair of headphones, and a wife who understands that if I can't actually work when I'm at home, the privilege will be withdrawn (by my employers).

I've been useless the last few months.

I find I am better when I take my laptop and go to Psycho's house on nursery day - I can focus on just work rather than washing etc.

I have the same issues working in an open plan office, can't imagine what I'd be like at home!

I can ALWAYS fine something else to do...like right now!

I am especailly struggling at the moment as I have just come back from holiday and I just can't get motivated. I know that if I were working from home I'd fine something else to do.

I going out shopping at lunchtime but I know I should really work through my lunch as I've got loads to do an I was in late today.

Let me remind all of you at home...working with people is great BUT very distracting (we're always chatting/making a coffee etc..)

Brilliant though it is, this thread is definitely a bad influence on me. Makes me feel less guilty about procrastinating while DD is at nursery, because everyone else is doing it!

Oooh, please let's keep this thread going. We can motivate and shout at each other!

I've worked from home for 10 years and I'm still shit. Of course, when I lived alone I had more time to do stuff, but I still left everything till the hour before, then spent ages doing complicated things (like faking corrupted documents! Takes hours) to get out of trouble. {hmm}

Now I have 2 kids, i really thought I'd be this model of calm self-control, getting all the chores done by 5:30am, then writing like a demon during DS2's naps, and being all superwoman.

Instead? Here I am, Mumsnetting!

Do any of you find that you actually do loads of housework when you have work to do? That the beep of the washing machine can be like a siren's song?

That you make f*cking SOUP all the time? (I do.)

That on the days when you do manage to do work, plus housework, plus not be a bad mother, you are in an amazing mood, and the days you don't you ache with guilt and hate yourself? Then go to bed vowing to be better tomorrow?

Oh, I'm very pleased I found this thread!

I'm about to start a prolonged spell of working from home and I'm terrified I'll end up miserable and unproductive like I did last time.

I am looking forward to getting the housework under control though

in preparation for working at home I'm going to:

• Buy a lock for the biscuit tin and give he key to DH to take to work
• Sort out my "office"(desk in corner of bedroom) so that it's a nicer working environment (maybe a nice wee vase of flowers)
• ban myself from working at the kitchen table where lack of natural light forces me into eating my own weight in chocolate
• try going out for a walk at "lunchtime" to get rid of the cobwebs and justify my new fitflops!
• Limit my time on mumsnet and/or retail therapy. Might use it as a reward instead of an avoidance tactic

[heads off muttering "must not make soup must not make soup..."]

Can someone, in fact - give me a royal kick up the arse right now?

It's tough isn't it. I would love to be able to work out of the house to be honest. Both Dss are at school now. Too many distractions.

But rent is so expensive so for now i have a room in my house i use.

"That on the days when you do manage to do work, plus housework, plus not be a bad mother, you are in an amazing mood, and the days you don't you ache with guilt and hate yourself? Then go to bed vowing to be better tomorrow?"

Beautiful that's sadly so true..I thought it was just my Catholic upbringing causing the guilt but obviously it's not just me!

PortandLemon get back to work! Now! You're not being paid to watch tennis.

Duh! PortBlack even.

Does anyone find that they end up booking extra childcare sessions for their DC's and that they are never sure where they are going that day?

We are both freelance and have a very flexible nursery who can always fit in extra sessions. My poor DD's never seem to have the same week twice in a row. I'd love them to have a bit more routine, but can't afford the childcare for weeks when one of us could look after them that day..