This summer’s school break is great for parents and kids alike. We all have the chance to sleep later and stay up a little bit later, go places and do things that we couldn’t do during the confines of the school year. We got to enjoy life a little more. All of the enjoyment, however, comes at a price. When you’re a work at home mom, the productivity and workload can take a hit.

Summer Income Drop:

Recently I spent a little time analyzing my summer income numbers. It’s no surprise to note that there was a drop in income during the past two months (gasp). I wrote enough to keep income coming in but I wasn’t as prolific during the summer months as I had been in the spring. Luckily I do have a few residual income sources that weren’t affected by my lack of productivity.

Now that it’s time for the kids to go back to school, I’ll be able to re-establish my writing schedule. After all, this is the time of the year when businesses get back to work preparing for the holiday season. As a work at home mom, I’ve got to follow suit.

Lesson Learned:

Write like the dickens during the school year to beef up my residual income sources so that next summer I’ll have a larger residual income check to enjoy.

If you are one of the parents who likes to write or has a computer practicable skill, then working from home on the computer or laptop is a perfect solution, correct? Well, actually, in many cases, like mine, it’s partially correct.

The idealistic vision of Mom and Dad working from home on their laptops while little Johnny is fast asleep in his bassinet is just that…an idealistic vision. The reality is more like little Johnny doesn’t want to sleep, he wants to be held and big sister Sally who just turned 3 wants to show you how well she cleaned the bathroom using your favorite, and expensive, beauty products.

Reality Strikes

The reality is that it’s not always easy to work from home with kids. My kids are older, but just as demanding. I find that I tend to dictate articles in my digital voice recorder while driving to and from basketball, football and cheerleading competitions. I edit articles in the wee hours of the morning while they’re asleep and the house is quiet.

I use the snippets of overheard teen-aged conversations as material for articles and down time in the Dentist waiting room or while folding clothes as quiet time to formulate new ideas for blogging posts.

Be Adaptable

The one important quality that I’ve found that has helped me work from home is being adaptable. I’m not saying that you compromise your goals, what I’m saying is that you’ve got to be able to re-adjust them on the fly while still getting done what you need to get done.

I make my daily goals known to my family. Periodically throughout the day, they’ll ask, “Mom, how many articles did you get done today?” Or, “Mom, did you finish that article on…” Sometimes I have to burn the midnight oil to accomplish my daily goals, but it’s a small price to pay to be able to work from home.