As I’ve mentioned, I started a new job a few months ago as Director of Social Media at a PR firm As I have also mentioned, I am absolutely loving my job. I work with fantastic, smart, nice people, and I get to do interesting work for clients I like and admire.
(Can you tell I like my job?)
Because I have responsibility for a specific, growing area of business for the company – digital media – I feel a lot of ownership of what I am doing in a way that I have not before. Don’t get me wrong – I definitely worked hard and did my best at my other jobs before this one – but no matter how busy I was, I mostly felt “done” at the end of the day, and I could sort of turn work off when I got home, and when you are a parent, that’s important. I think that young children in particular really need to feel like their mother is mentally present when she’s with them, especially if she’s already separated from them all day.
I already have to make an effort to leave home at home when I am at work – that’s always been an issue. I’ve had the great luck to always be employed by relatively family-friendly companies that were understanding of things like the inevitable calls from schools and kids and babysitters that a mother gets on the job, as well as the occasional need to stay home with a sick child, or leave midday for parent teacher conferences. But I’ve tried not to abuse this, so when I am at my desk, in my office, or in a meeting or whatever, I try to be 100% focused on work, and leave home at home. But that’s not always easy for me. It’s taken a certain conscious mental discipline over the years to get to the point where I can really switch gears like that. It also helps when I have childcare that I feel great about set up for all of the kids (which I do these days, but haven’t always in years past.
Now, I find that I am having to try harder to leave my job behind when I am at home.This is because I am so energized by the work I am doing that my mind is always “on” with ideas and possibilities for clients (to whom I try to be responsive 24/7 via my extra appendage BlackBerry). Being this into my work is obviously a good thing in a lot of ways, but I do find myself thinking about things like the language in the social media policy I am writing for a client when I should be thinking about the conversation I am having with one of the kids. If I notice myself doing this, I make an effort to employ my “be here now” mental discipline to put myself back where I actually am, but it’s not easy. And sometimes, I am actually so looking forward to getting started on some work-stuff that I plan to do after they go to bed that I find myself rushing through the evening to get to the point where I can sit back down at my computer. Again, not good. The working after they go to bed is okay – I’ve always done a lot of that – but when they are still awake, I need to be just as focused on mothering as I am on my work when that’s what’s in front of me.
So that’s my challenge at the moment: keep up the momentum and enthusiasm I have for my job while finding a way to be more present in my family life.
Any of you other working mamas have any great tips, tricks or techniques for pulling this off? If so, please share!
3 Responses to “Leaving work at work and home at home”
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Start early. I work full-time from home, so I never really leave the office. I get up at 4-4:30 a.m. so I can get in a couple of hours’ work before the kids are awake. I find that much easier than planning to do a couple of hours’ work after they go to bed.
Congrats of having such an exciting job! When I worked in law, I had trouble leaving it at the office. I kept a small notebook handy for ideas, questions, etc. that would pop into my head at night. Also, sometimes leaving myself a voice memo in my phone.
This is one of the reasons I’m looking forward to a commute (if you can believe that)! I know I find myself needing about 30 minutes or so to wind down and clock out. Then, instead of telling my husband I’m not in the mindset yet, I hope I’ll have had time to decompress. Someone on your facebook mentioned taking the time by driving around the block or sitting in the car and it resonated with me. I think it’s one of the very few downsides to where we live in relation to where we work.