I guess we can define “successfully” here as “without going completely insane”. And the answer really depends on you as a person and your character more than anything else, and maybe to a certain extent the character of your beautiful lovely offspring!
Let’s take a brief look at some considerations to see if you would be one of those lucky souls who can manage being a new parent and working from the comfortable confines of your own little palace:
Work Environment:
Make yourself a checklist of everything you need to work effectively from home. Check it three times at least. Especially do not forget things like proper office furniture. A couple of well-placed expenditures at a place like http://www.furniture-work.co.uk can mean all the difference between a successful work-at-home experience and one that’s less than successful. You will to some extent have to recreate the office environment at home for this type of work to work.
Scheduling And Deadlines:
In general, in order for your stay-at-home job to be successful, your schedule should closely mimic what your schedule was in the office, minus of course the commute both ways.
At any rate, do not make the mistake of allowing yourself to be called upon at all hours of the day or night, just because you are working from home. This could get you exploited, and also runs the risk of keeping you from baby too much to be worth it. Also, don’t schedule yourself a full day of taking care of baby, and then think you are going to work all night and do it all again, day in and day out. That would be a recipe for a breakdown!
Get Help:
Finally, be realistic with how much you can do in a given day. If you have a day where you are minding your children and trying to get a full day’s work done, it’s probably not going to match your expectations for productivity. Don’t be afraid to invoke your support network and get help watching the kids. If you absolutely have to watch them full-time, understand that you will wind up working less, and may have to be up-front about such with your employer or clients. This is where working as a contractor can come in handy, since there is much less to negotiate in cases like those.
No matter what your situation is, you have to be very careful not to underestimate the amount of time and energy it takes to care for an infant, especially in the first tender year of its existence.
