Becoming The Daytime Empty Nester

This September my youngest goes off to school. I will become daytime ’empty nesters’ as I work predominantly from home. It’s a watershed moment in child-rearing, hopefully saying goodbye to hellish logistics where everyone is in different places (until the eldest goes secondary school that is). Will there be more free time to do more? Or just get the stuff I’m trying to do now done better.

The trouble with me is I cannot sit on my hands when it comes to work. Taking that brave step to become self-employed 3 years ago has really paid off. Logistically, the work life balance is better - not having to go into an office every day. On the flip side, it’s taken a while to book days off and have boundaries on my working day i.e. switching off the e-mails during bath, tea and bedtime.

I would never made it as a full-time stay-at-home-mum. My brain spits out handful ideas of projects I’d like to do, posts I’d like to write on a daily basis. And I have this nagging need to push ahead and get these things done. Since having my second child, I’ve started two completely different careers in two different fields, plus also trained as a breastfeed peer support worker. It’s exhausting just writing that sentence. But despite the manic days, this level of variety makes me very happy.

However, there are times when I’m spinning all those plates, when I would like to spin one or two really well, instead of manically stopping the wobble on about eight!

And this is what I hope September will bring. After the settling in period, maybe after October half-term, I’ll start to get some daily momentum on my passion projects. Take them to a whole new level. Achieve something for me, my business, my website, my ‘two careers’. And hopefully do more things extremely well, rather than a ton of things just about right.

Did you send off the last of your brood off to school last September? What was it like? Did it improve your time management?