How COVID Helped My Work-Life Balance

Before COVID, I literally dreamed about having a job that would let me work from home. I despised my daily hour to hour and a half commute every day. Even more, I hated only getting to spend around 2 hours a night with Stokely and seeing my husband on his days off (he works evenings). One of the positive things that have come out of this global pandemic is the ability to work from home full-time. I’ve been able to spend more time with my husband and son and create more of a work-life balance.

Balancing work and mom life is challenging no matter who you are. There just are not enough hours in the day to get everything done and some days nothing gets done at all as a result. While I by no means have everything figured out, I do have my own personal set schedule to keep my head above the water and to ensure that I do not lag behind in either area of my life. Here’s how I handle work-life balance during a typical day.

6:30/7am-ish

Stokely comes in our room with a good morning smile and hug. On days I workout, I set my alarm for 5:50 to make it to my 6:30 workout class. I make it home by 7:10ish.

7am

Get Stokely changed and dressed for the day. Head downstairs and log into my work computer.

7am-9am

Get breakfast ready for Stokely and myself (normally just coffee for me) and spend the morning juggling work and playing with Stokely. I work from our dining room table so that I’m in the same space as Stokely. The hubs normally wakes up and comes down between 8am-8:30am.

9am

My mom or mother-in-law pick up Stokely for the day.

9:30am-4:30pm

This is when most of work day happens. I’ll work on both my full-time work and business work during this time and run any errands if needed. The hubs will normally go for a run, watch some tv, or take a nap before heading to work at 2pm. We try to eat lunch together most days. Showering happens sometime during the day.

5pm-6:30ish-pm

I pick up Stokely from my mom or mother-in-law’s house. They will typically feed him dinner. If not, we’ll head home and have dinner around 6-6:30pm.

6:30pm-7pm

Bath time for Stokely

7pm-8pm

Stokely and I FaceTime the hubs to say goodnight and Stokely gets a before bed snack and cup of milk. Most nights we’ll watch an episode of his favorite show (T.O.T.S) or read a book.

8pm-8:15pm

Bed time for Stokely. We listen to music while we rock in his chair for a little while before I tuck him in. He’s very rarely asleep when I leave his room but he’ll stay in bed until he does fall asleep.

8:30pm-9:30pm

Me time. This is normally when I have dinner, do some more day-job or business related work or catch up on a show.

10pm

Bedtime for me. I’m normally asleep before the hubs makes it home. Sometimes if he gets home early or I go to bed late, we’ll watch some TV together before going to bed.

My hope for a post-COVID world is that I’ll get to continue working at home full time. The ability to spend more time with my family has truly been amazing. In the past six months, I’ve been able to see Stokely grow and change so much. I know that if I still had to go into the office, I’d be missing out on a lot. Working from home as also allowed my husband and I to spend more time together (without going crazy). We’ve even been able to accomplish major goals from our bucket list – buying a waterfront home (more in a post soon), that I know would have been harder to manage if I still had to commute everyday.

While the pandemic is certainly still a scary thing and we’re doing our part to stay healthy (and home bound), it’s provided an unexpected blessing that I never thought possible.