Kate Padilla

I posted on Instagram a while ago that the toughest part of being a work-from-home mom is focus management.

Everything is in your face all at once — the laundry, the housework, the kids and their constant requests for snacks and screens, the task list, etc. It all needs attention, and it all needs attention right now.

If you notice from how I titled this post (or worded it on IG), I referred to “focus management” rather than “time management.”

There is a difference.

I can be the best time-blocker out there. I can dutifully set aside two hours each morning to tackle my most important task, and I can schedule out my day so that — in a perfect scenario — everything that needs to get done that day is given the time.

But, undoubtedly, there will be interruptions. In the middle of working on my most important task, my boys may come in from the backyard wanting to swim in the bathtub. My 2yo may throw a wrench into naptime by deciding he’s not going to sleep that day (or not sleep very long).

Time can be managed on a schedule. But focus is more nuanced, and I would argue it may be more important than the time itself.

Left unchecked, it all can be overwhelming.

But I’ve been living this life for almost five years now (crazy how quickly time passes) and I’ve learned a few tricks about how to manage everything, seemingly all at once (but not really all at once).

What do I do to help manage focus? Here are a few things I’ve found work for me:

1. Think ‘big picture’

Up until fairly recently, I have to admit, I found myself anxious at the idea that everything needed to be done right now. The laundry had to be caught up. The house had to be tidy. The books had to be balanced and the client list had to be updated.

If I was on top of it all, I’d tell myself, things would pretty much run themselves and I could focus on building the next thing.

Of course that’s not true.

Ultimately, bit-by-bit consistency is more effective than extreme effort over a short period of time.

My home will be generally tidier if I spend 30 minutes per day cleaning than if I spend three and a half house powering through on a Saturday morning. I will be more successful with my client files if I update them at the end of each day than if I have to set aside a half day once a week to remember the conversation I had six days previously.

Building habits, slowly, allows me to spend a bit of each day working towards the ultimate goal. I don’t get overwhelmed with what needs to be done (because even my 30 minutes per day cleaning is divided into 10-minute increments across three rooms, in a loop). And I can look back on the previous week and feel proud of what was accomplished.

2. Prioritize

This one is huge. My kids do not need me to entertain them the entire day. They can entertain themselves for a good chunk of time, even without screens (though we do enjoy them as well). But I also know that spending time, individually, with each child is important.

And so I’ve determined that one way I can spend that individual time is through reading. And I plan it in. When I plan my next week (more on that below), I make a list of the stories I want to read with each of my boys in the next week. I value them taking in quality content, through literature as well as through television and music. Reading fairy tales and classic stories together is one way we can do this.

3. Delegate

I’m not in the position where I have a team, or even an assistant (virtual or in-person) — though it is something I do anticipate in the coming years. But I mean “delegate” in a different sense here.

Each day of my week is set aside for a specific part of running my life:

• Mondays are for finances — updating my budget and books, projecting the next fiscal period, and looking back at the year-over-year trends.
• Tuesdays are for continued education — taking courses to renew my real estate license, finding online learning to become better in my industry.
• Wednesdays are for content creation — social media posts, blogs, and newsletters
• Thursday are for prospecting — finding and nurturing more real estate business
• Fridays are for catch-up — taking care of the important tasks that remained from the last week
• Saturdays are for planning — looking ahead at the next week and scheduling what needs to be done (including meals, goals, cleaning, and work).
• Sundays are for prepping — putting myself in a position to best accomplish what I’ve got ahead in the next week

I don’t need to get overwhelmed by my task list, because most of the tasks will fit into one of the days of the week. And the few things that don’t have a place in a pre-determined focus area could usually fit on a Friday (‘catch-up’ day).

But what about the seemingly urgent tasks that need to be done immediately? There is still time for those. When I think through the week, according to these focus areas, I’m looking at larger tasks or projects that will help move me and my business forward.

The smaller tasks — the ones that can be completed and checked off the list in five minutes or less — are scheduled in a general, “other tasks” part of the day.

(Plus, if we’re being honest, very few tasks that appear “urgent” on the surface really are emergencies.)

Focus management, which is similar but not quite the same as time management, allows me to show up when and where I am most needed, and not constantly be thinking about something else that needs to be done in some other compartment of my life. And as my business and my family grow, the hope is that this management system will be able to scale as well.