Managing Your Career and Virtual School

There are two ways we enter This Fierce Life. One is when we decide to stay-at-home and raise our little ones for those first 3 – 5 years of their life. The other is because of the pandemic that we are living in. 

In most recent weeks, I’ve spoken with parents who have been laid off and looking to start their own business while at home with virtual school happening in the background. Some are having to leave their jobs to stay home with their children during virtual school right now. And yet others may also be staying home and continuing to work for their current employers, but they’ve added managing virtual school to their day.

However you got here, we’re here. I am in many ways having deja vu. I started with a newborn, added a second and once both kids were in school a short five years ago, I took my business to the next level by moving to a brick-and-mortar agency model. Here I am now in 2020 back at home with a fifth and eighth grade student running alongside my agency schedule. I’ve changed a number of things to make it work. Here’s what I’ve learned so far in this first semester are below.

• The first two weeks. Allow yourself to work, but cut meetings for the first week. Limit yourself to before or after school calls during week two as needed. You’ll need your time. I set my out of office for the first few days as we were figuring things out. If you have children in third grade or lower, I would be even more reserved on how much time I would allow my work to take during the day. The truth is, our littlest ones will need more direction and guidance when attending virtual school, but there are days my fifth grader takes all of my attention when he’s frustrated with a project or tech fails.
• Daily Schedule. Line out their daily schedule on a shared document. Add your daily meetings so they can see when you’ll be tied up as well. For example, if I have a call with my team they know they can interrupt as needed. If it’s with a client, they should bring me a sticky note or make sure that it’s a legit need, not when they need help opening a can of spaghetti-o’s. 
• Scheduling Meetings.  After the first two weeks I could see the two times a day that worked best to set calls and team meetings. I then arranged the schedule accordingly. I also limited myself to just two meetings a day if at all possible. Each meeting I worked to cut do just 30 minutes or less.
• Lunch and Recess breaks. This can be a hard shift to make on your time, but worth it. You get your play time back with your child. This is your chance to check in with your child on how school, life, physical and mental health are doing in the midst of a completely strange year – for all of us. Give them that time. Allow yourself to be present in that time. Do NOT book calls or meetings during that time unless it’s necessary. You need that stress-break as much as they do. Take it and lean into it.
• Time management tool. I’m leaning on my Fierce 15 time management tool even more now as I’m more interrupted than ever throughout the day. Between client requests, team feedback and the kids’ continual chatter, when I turn to my work I need a guide to help me accomplish things 5, 10 and 15 minutes at time. If you haven’t tried it out, check it out here. Download the three options and get it into practice. 
• Have patience. Show grace. Virtual school and starting or building your creative business at the same time requires patience and grace. You have to give yourself some grace when you don’t get as much done as you thought. You have to show patience with your children, your team and yourself. 
• How this affects your team. Your work team is also experiencing changes, whether they are now working remote, have their own family dynamics or struggle with working alone. Check in with them. You need to put the emotional and mental state of your children and team on your daily schedule. Be flexible as they figure out how to navigate things, just as you want them to extend that same grace and flexibility to you.
• Keep at least 30 minutes to yourself. I know that seems small, but you can also find days in a row where you have essentially no time outside of business or family to check in with yourself. I am still working hard to do a 15 – 30 minute session at least four days a week for yoga, swimming or a walk to clear my head. Any time over that is a bonus!

Want to chat more on this? Email me and let’s connect on how you’re managing, what tips you have for others and how we can help support each other during this. Check out the Fierce 15 time management tool here and join us in Slack for more real-time conversation.