WAHM Baggage

Okay, here’s the scoop. If you don’t already know, work-at-home moms, or WAHM as we are often labeled, aren’t taken very seriously as business people. We’re considered flakes who raise kids full-time and play around making money during naps or whatever. There, I said it.

If you don’t believe me, check out some of the meatier webmaster forums that are almost entirely populated by men or “professional” women. When other members go looking for cheap content or services, members tend to recommend that others “ go find a WAHM looking to make a few bucks” on other forums. There are even e-books created and sold as a “special offer” that outline how to exploit WAHMs.

The general impression from the more “serious” website owners is that moms – especially those who write – are just sitting around watching their stories and eating bon-bons most of the time, but when they decide it’s time to make a few bucks to buy some new scrap booking supplies, they wait patiently for the webmasters to hand them a few quick articles to write for any amount the client is willing to offer.

It makes you shake your head, of course, and presumably you realize that this isn’t true for most of the serious writing moms out there regardless of where they choose to work. But even sadder than the general perception is the fact that there are some out there who encourage the stereotype be being exactly the type of WAHM the rest of us hate to be classified as.

It creates a nasty contradiction within the moms-who-work community.

The Mom Community

Anyone who is a mom knows that there are tiers and levels in the mothering community. Any woman who has given birth is given a free pass into the motherhood club. From there things get a little trickier. You have to earn your stripes if you’re going to be in the ‘exclusively breastfed’ club or if you want to be part of the ‘stay-at-home mom’ niche. You get another notch on your belt if you’re a ‘homeschooling’ mom or if you’re a serious ‘PTA’ or ‘Soccer’ mom. The categorization of the moms is endless, and it’s almost exclusively done by other moms.

Fortunately, while we may pick at each other over formula feeding and soccer leagues, moms tend to unite and support each other when things get a bit hairier. We can forget labels as quickly as we create them. As far as I’m concerned the WAHM title is just one of those that should probably be swept away or reclassified as non-combative.

Embrace WAHM-isms

Do I like being called a WAHM? Eh. I honestly don’t really care. I can fall into virtually any category of motherhood depending on the time of the year and the mood I’m in. But I know that it bothers others and I’ll hazard a guess that it’s the stereotype that is getting under their skin.

I don’t like being labeled anything I find offensive. I would hate to be called dumb or lazy. I would hate to be called a bad mother. I would hate for someone to slap me in a category where I don’t feel I belong, and that applies to all of our sensibilities. Otherwise why would so many professional-level writers feel the need to explain our business model and why we are different than the cheap writers? Why do we get offended when we see newspaper articles claiming that writing articles online is an easy way to earn money for those looking for new career options?

But in the grand scheme of things, this is just another layer of a very complex cake. There are some WAHMs out there grateful to pick up a few bucks while baby naps. These are essentially the same as the hobby writers or the college kids who want a little beer or Christmas money. Big deal. Leave them be.

Then there are the WAHMs who run full-scale businesses that enable them to provide fully for their families. I’ve been fortunate to know a nutritionist with her doctoral degree who choses to work from home as well as a full-time professional employee of Microsoft who also works from home. I know working moms who write part-time (like me) and those who write full-time (like others here.) I know moms who are full-time CPAs and award-winning professional photographers who travel to clients and need only a home office.

Professional or not, Tupperware or corporate accounts, we are all moms and we all happen to be that dreaded term: WAHM. Like so many others, this is a stereotype that holds no water.

Or does it?

I’m thinking back about seven years trying to get a grasp of who I was when I first started an online business. I’m curious how much the online writing career has shaped me over that time. It’s actually quite interesting – but then, since this is anything but a true scientific experiment – we can’t really determine how much life changes a mother and how much a freelance career does. I’d like to hazard a guess, however. I think it changes us quite dramatically.

Work-at-Home Moms Never Stop

I have lots of friends who work. They work in offices and they teach in schools. They stop working when the workday ends. Sure they may answer the occasional email or stay late for an open house, but the evenings are “their time.” I guess that could be true for a work-at-home parent who works during the day, but with clients all over the globe, it’s not unusual for me to be on the phone at 10 pm talking to clients even if I was writing at 6 that morning. I wake up in the morning with IMs waiting for me. For “normal” moms – career or not, it’s considered odd to be up working at 10:30 at night. For most of my clients, it’s bizarre to not be available at that time – it’s when all the good brainstorming happens.

Work-at-Home Moms Work Harder

I have the double benefit of having two careers. Quite honestly, I work hard at both, but once upon a time I had an office job. (It could have been a career, but I disliked it intensely.) If I still had that job and I wrote, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I’d be making more than I am now teaching, and that I’d be working a heck of a lot less during the daytime than I do now. (The money wasn’t worth the torture, before you ask). Just think about the time you worked in an office. How long was your lunch break? How often did you stop to catch up with a colleague or “brainstorm” with a manager? How long were those never ending meetings in the conference room?

Now think about the working moms you know – and this can be extended to virtually any freelance or self-employed person. We know the value of a dollar and our minutes translate directly into cash in most cases. Sure, I’d love to sit and chat on someone else’s dime, but that’s not happening in my current universe. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling Tupperware or legal advice, moms working at home have a set amount of time to work, and they respect it immensely. I can’t say the same for people in any of the various out-of-home careers I’ve had over the years.

WAHM Are More Opinionated

This may be totally personal, but I seem to have grown more opinionated over the years. (Incidentally, you can substitute ‘cocky’ or ‘arrogant’ in for opinionated if you’d like.) I might not be making millions, but I have all of the ingredients of success – a business that’s been in the black since Day 1 with substantial profits going on seven years. I have freedom and I can adjust my income simply by adjusting my hours or effort. It’s heady stuff.

I’m reasonably sure that level of confidence translates into other areas of life. I’m not afraid to ask questions, and I stand up for myself and my friends when necessary. That wasn’t me eight years ago. I was more restrained and shrank from an argument. Now I can hold my own professionally and earn more respect for it. I’m enjoying the confidence this has given me. I hope the other working moms out there feel the same way.

It takes a lot of dedication and discipline to freelance from home. As I sit here, a book I started and the newest episode of Glee are calling my name. But I won’t stop writing to give in to the temptation. I can’t. I have work to do and only a certain amount of time to do it in. Fortunately, I’ve been practicing self-sacrifice, or as we mothers like to call it, “setting priorities”, for years. And that is why working with kids can be such a productivity booster.

There Is No “Later”

My boys figured it out very fast. When I tell them we’ll do something “later”, they know it means we’re probably not going to do it if they can’t pin me down to a specific time and date. Sadly I try and fool myself sometimes with the same trick. I plan to do something “later”, but it rarely works – it would be like losing an argument with myself. I know there is no “later”, because if there was, I’d have been using that time for years to do the things that need to get done around here. I work during my work time, because there simply is no other time.

90 to Nothing

Try telling a young child to go back to sleep Saturday morning when he pops awake at 5:30 am. (Thanks, Daylight Savings Time.) Just try and close your eyes for a few seconds in the afternoon with two young boys playing ninja in the house. Every moment at home with children you’re engaged in some way – you’re either listening carefully while you try to pretend you have free time around the house or you’re actively involved playing, breaking up arguments, soothing hurts or reading stories.

The concept of downtime takes on a whole new meaning after kids. I’ve yet to meet a mother who lounges about on a Saturday morning wondering what she will do to keep from being bored until she goes back to work. Instead every morning is the start of a daily marathon and you must pace yourself. Guess what? So is work! When you finally have those hours to sit down and work, you can’t screw around surfing the web or playing Facebook Friends.

Fortunately, we don’t require a warm-up period. We can pop out of bed at 5:30 to the sound of crashes from upstairs, and we can start cranking out billable hours in a matter of moments when those little sleepy eyelids finally close. We know that there’s only a certain amount of time available between eyelids closing and eyelids opening and not much time at that. Productivity experts ain’t got nothing on us!

Don’t Look at Me in That Tone of Voice

I hope I can say this for all mom-writers out there, but I’m afraid some might not have realized the true combined power of motherhood and writerhood just yet. Mothers have immense power over their children when they choose to use that power it wisely.

You can also turn assertive mothering into assertiveness in your business. You wouldn’t stoop to argue with your child over candy for dinner – it’s just a firm, “No – that’s not something we do in our house.” So don’t argue about things you don’t do in your business. I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve snapped off with a “Because I said so!” tone of voice(text?) before I could even think about being “softer” on clients.

Surprisingly it’s paid off – as it turns out clients in my market like to know that a freelancing professional is assertive enough to know and state her mind. They don’t want simpering, apologies and gentleness. They want someone who is firm, assertive and tough when she needs to be and nurturing as necessary.

Sound familiar?

“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.”

There are plenty of reasons to work. The biggest is, of course, money. But let’s pretend for a moment that all jobs paid you enough to live on easily. What job would you pick? What career would you seek out? I can tell you right now it wasn’t power accounting for me. Been there, did the job just fine, but was miserable doing it.

I decided to make the rest of my life a journey of sorts to find the things I enjoy doing and then to make money doing them – as much money as possible, of course. And for the most part I have. I took a huge pay cut to teach at-risk kids and never looked back – ten years later I still love it, and there are ample rewards, if not financial ones.

“If they take my stapler then I’ll set the building on fire.”

And then almost seven years ago I decided to use the other part of my brain for business and I started to write. Some might write for the sake of writing, and I tried that more than a few times over the years, but I found the small business format much more successful and a great deal of fun.

Would I teach and write for free? A juvenile phrasing, but very effective, in all honestly I probably wouldn’t do it for nothing. I have some serious bills to get paid over here and I thrive under my own little capitalistic system. Money is motivation when the sheer pleasure of writing website copy is not. But there’s more to it than that.

“This isn’t so bad, huh? Makin’ bucks, gettin’ exercise, workin’ outside.”

I’ve written frequently about finding balance with the writing, teaching and mothering, especially as a mother who also works outside of the home. Over the summers I just write and hang with my little men, so I know both sides of the working mother lifestyle – the home and the workplace. I still get questioned about having the two jobs, but not as frequently as I used to. Most people have realized that I enjoy having both careers and I’m reasonably successful at both. But it does take some work and some positive self-talk at times to barrel through the tough days.

For example, on Monday I watched my kids take an exam the district put together to get them ready for the new standardized test in my area. The exam they were taking should have marked the end of a grading period, but there was no curriculum on the thing – teach the test, indeed. Annoyance with the stupid test aside, I was fortunate to have almost half a day that I could work at my desk and just keep an eye on the kids testing. I used to time to play with numbers.

“And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.”

All freelancers have to play with numbers. It’s a maintenance task that I love to do (I do have a business and accounting background, after all), but often I put off because there are only so many hours in the day. I also have my self-employment taxes taken out my teaching paycheck, so I don’t have to file quarterly for the writing. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to put off accounting tasks otherwise.

But we’re coming up quickly on a very special occasion over here – my husband is allegedly going to be getting a nice raise when he’s hired on permanently to a computer company in this area. He’s been contracting for the company for about nine months now.

So I played with the numbers. I only have eight months left of childcare payments. Big savings there starting this summer. I’m almost finished paying off one of those zero-interest loans on a much needed sofa. More savings there. Then I factored in the raise we’re hoping for and realized that in about a year I will only “need” to make about a third of what I do now to maintain the lifestyle we’re accustomed to.

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us.”

That’s a very big deal, and one we’re working hard to reach – we cancelled cable since we can watch shows online. We condensed cell phone plans to cut bills, and in another eight months I’m going to be freed from a lot of the financial obligations I’ve had to meet with my various careers for the past few years. I texted my husband, “We’re almost there!”

It was a clarity moment for me. I’ve been working hard for years because I enjoy writing, but also because I need the income while my husband builds a new career. Now that phase of my life is drawing to a close, and guess what! I don’t have to write very much in just a few short months. But I will. Hell, I’ll probably write more because I’ll be free of the money worries and stress that have driven the career for so long. I’m once again enjoying a job that I would (but certainly don’t have to) do for free.

I hope the same is true for many of you, especially my fellow moms working at home to supplement the family income.

Adjusting Mentally

Growing up it’s ingrained that 40 hours is the norm for work. 9 to 5, right? Of course, I’ve tried those cubicle jobs a few times and they were never really 40 hours, especially not when you factor in the commute. Then, once you dip into self employment you learn that 40 hours is nothing – when you start a business you’re working constantly to get it going and keep it going. Or at least most people are. I couldn’t, and most parents at home with kids can’t work insane hours either.

This can give you a whiplash effect as you get adjusted. First you have to adjust to working the off times when you “should” be relaxing. I worked virtually every evening for years – seven days a week – and had almost no downtime to speak of. Now I’m down to working six day a week, which means I’m working a grand total of 12 hours per week. Not too bad if you look at it income wise, but as most of us know, time is money. The more you’re able to work the more money you make. My 12 hours has to include writing, marketing and networking as well. It’s a tough gig working within tight constraints.

This takes getting used to, not only because I’ve lost my free time without kids, but also because, at times, I feel like I’m not living up to my self-employed potential. While other writers are cranking out ebooks and building new platforms, I’m just chugging along finding ways to maximize my two hours per day. I can’t invest more time in my current set-up, so I have to work smarter. Even as I do this, however, I worry that I’m not as “serious” as the full-time writers or that I’m cheating myself out of more money. In this regard freelancing is like motherhood – there’s guilt and mental anguish associated with every choice you make.

Savvy Writer

So if I’m not a full-time writer, I have to be content to be a savvy part-time writer. If we were to take a poll, I’d wager that a fair number of the professional writers with children at home are also part-time writers, but they don’t usually advertise it. That’s because you’re not taken as seriously if you’re just “part-time.” Many people view part-time writers as hobby writers. Since you’re not working all the time, you can’t be serious about it. In my case, at least, these assumptions can’t be more wrong.

I’ve just built my constraints into my marketing. I’m upfront about my full-time job (teacher, if you didn’t know) and then I market my part-time writing not as something I do for extra money, but as an exclusive service. Part-time makes me selective and when I convey that message it actually makes the whole package more attractive to clients. Many of them seem to respect me even more when I tell them I’ll complete their project in a few weeks due to time constraints.

Lessons for the WAHM

Don’t be afraid to set your own hours. I might only work twelve hours or so a week, but those hours are billing out at a minimum of $60 – $75 each. Usually I make more than $100 per hour. I might not be a six-figure writer, but I’ll settle for being half of that working less than half the amount of time. The trick is to simply make the schedule, the time constraints and the constant guilt and pressure work for you.

As a mom who works at home part of the time, I need to have my office in the middle of the madness. This means I can hear everything when I need to hear it – especially at night when little boys have bad dreams while mom’s working. I like to be on the ground floor of our two-story house so that I can monitor the dogs, the kitchen and the doors. This preference rules out any rooms upstairs including a spare room that is being used as my husband’s office for now and soon a guest room when he moves into the “man cave” to be closer to his aquarium.

I only have a few spots to pick from downstairs that can handle my two monitors, my laptop stand and my writer sprawl and be appropriate. I picked what seemed like the best – the dining room. After all, we never actually ate in here. I sold the dining room furniture, which was in mint condition since it was never used, and set up a cheap six foot folding table to hold the computer, monitors and laptop until I could come up with a better solution.

That moment is finally upon me. Only, I’m having second thoughts about what I want to do.

My original plan was to put in two stock kitchen cabinets and two shorter bathroom stack-of-drawers as the base for a built-in desk and bookshelf system. My desk would be on the lower section, flanked by three drawers on either side. Against the wall on either side of those would be big three foot cabinets that would become the base for very large bookshelves (that I’ll build next summer) to hold my massive teacher book collection and all my supplies and files.

I have no doubt that I could do this well enough to be nicely presentable, but my concern now is that a large built in office in the dining room might be something I regret later since I can’t take it with me and the next owners (in twenty years) might want a grand dining room rather than a library/dining room combo unit. I have to decide soon because the cabinets need to be installed before the flooring goes in.

Writers at home, especially those with young children who need to be all ears all the time, where do you work? Am I crazy for building an awesome library and office in my dining room? Help!

Preface: I Have Three Stressful Jobs

You have to understand that I’m not just idly whining here. I take full responsibility for my three stressful jobs. I chose this lifestyle.  I have two boys – one six and one almost four. We’ll be spending the summer together starting….today. I have a job teaching some seriously needy at-risk teenagers. Most days I feel like I’m really good at what I do here and I like to think, with a bit of encouragement from my students, that I do a reasonably good job with it, so I enjoy it enough to keep teaching. Then, on top of that I have a writing career that I can’t seem to fit very well into the evening or into the morning right now. So I’m tired – a lot. And I’m stressed – a lot.

But I deal with it, and if you’re ripping your hair out, you can, too.

Running Full Speed into a Wall

I find that giving myself a small break means I give myself permission to be lazy over a period of time and I lose money, so I don’t take breaks in that way. I just push myself until I hit a wall. Then I go to bed, drink some more Diet Dr. Pepper and keep going. Usually this takes about four or five months at a stretch, but there are times that it really starts to get tricky for me.

One tricky time is this part of year when school is winding down. Summers were created for teachers to regain their sanity. That means that the normal teacher is crazy right now. Teachers with their own kids are crazier and those of us in my boat are positively insane. I have body aches and twitches that weren’t there in March, I promise you. That means that I have to just expect the insanity, warn my family ahead of time and then just power through it aided by Hot Tamales, yearbooks and $1 drinks from McDonalds. I’ve done it six years now, and twitches aside, there hasn’t been any lasting damage.

I’m not sure this is a good method for everyone to try – some people don’t go pedal to the metal very well and live to tell the tale, but if you haven’t ever tried to just barrel through something – a marathon, an intense work schedule, an all-nighter – maybe you should try. You actually feel pretty amazing on the other side, even if you’re more tired than a human should ever be. You might also be amazed at just how much you can really do.

Pacing: Hourly, Weekly, Annually

Ask any marathoner and you’ll probably hear a lot about pacing. I wouldn’t actually know since I run only when chased by something bigger than me (and that’s saying something). But pacing yourself during a marathon is a lot like what those of us with the insane schedules have to do, I’d imagine. I go into my days knowing I’ll crash by the end of it, but that I can’t crash too early. I go into my weeks and my school years knowing the same thing.

On a daily basis I can physically feel myself holding back reserves of strength. I might skip a trip to the mall with my kids on a Saturday because it will deplete my reserves. I might push for an earlier kid bedtime since I know I’m running out of steam and I have to preserve some energy for work that night. Most parents do this already by the nature of parenting, but I do it so often that I often feel a bit guilty. How much more could I do if I wasn’t saving myself to get some work done later?

I pace myself on a weekly basis as well by staggering assignments to fit my mood throughout the week. Monday gets the easy warm-up, routine work, Tuesday through Thursday are the hard assignments and Friday is the wind-down day. Sunday is my own stuff and Saturday is my day off – which I definitely need by then. Most amusingly of all, I do this same sort of pacing on an annual basis – I don’t take on new projects or anything too hard around the beginning or the end of the school year because those times of year are so crazy already.

Pacing might be something natural or it might be a learned skill – I’m not sure anymore at this point since I’ve been doing it so long, but it does bring with it a sense of guilt. Could I be growing my business? Could I be doing more for my family? Probably – but I’m almost afraid to upset the already delicate balance in my life right now that I’ve worked hard to achieve, and I guess there is some guilt, but definitely no shame in that.

If you’re not a part-time writing parent and you have to find ways to balance your time this summer, you have a few options.

Scale Back

There is no rule saying you have to work full-time all the time. Perhaps working part-time over the summer is the perfect solution, especially if your household budget can handle it. You might convert to my insane hours of working 4 to 6 am or the more common hours of 8 to 10 or 11 pm when the kids are asleep. If you’re lucky you might be able to squeeze in some work during the day while the kids destroy the upstairs or watch television.

Simply removing the pressure to work full-time or for a set period during the day allows you more time with your kids and more time doing fun activities now that everyone is home together. You might also find that working very part-time boosts your productivity as well. I work two hours a day, five or six days a week and I make almost as much writing as I do teaching – it’s a matter of billing yourself appropriately and managing that time like a slave driver.

Send the Kids Away

There are so many good camps and programs during the summer months if you need quiet time away from the kids. If your kids are out of school, but need an activity to keep you all productive and sane, look to local universities, museums and community centers for opportunities. Don’t over schedule your children, of course, and if you plan to keep them busy every week during the summer, try and use the same location or childcare provider to give the kids some consistency. A benefit of the summer childcare is that it is often fewer hours than regular school hours, so you have time to work and plenty of time to spend with your kids.

Invite Help Over

If you have younger elementary school kids, invite over a reliable teenager and let him or her handle the requests of your kids for a few hours. Bring over your babysitter and then melt away into your office or take the laptop to the coffee shop down the street and get your work done. This may be less expensive than the camps over the summer, especially if you have multiple children, and your kids will likely think having a “big kid” over to play is very exciting – a total win/win.

Tough It Out

If your kids are old enough, they may be trained well enough to leave you alone during the day while you work. I’ve found that trying to schedule work this way leaves me feeling stressed, but my kids are still young. One thing that does help is working in the morning. You don’t have to get up insanely early to work mornings. If you wake up at 7 and write until 11 or 12, your older kids may only be up for part of those hours and then spend those hours watching cartoons or playing quietly. Mornings and fresh, non-grouchy kids seem to be the best combination for writing during the day if you have to write with kids underfoot.

I got up with my kids this morning around 6:45 and lay in bed for a few minutes thinking and sleeping some more. My almost 6-year-old raced upstairs to play Mario on the Wii and his 3-year-old brother trailed after him. I could lie in bed for a while and luxuriate with my now-slightly-less-sore throat or I could use this time. I could actually work.

So I did.

I have four things to write this morning.

I wrote the first one without interruption. I reviewed it and sent it off. Then I started on the second. It was a bit more complex and required some research. By now I had company in the form of a three-year-old, but I powered through with the help of Starfall.com and some squeezing yogurt.

I thought that was going to be the end of my productivity this morning with my oldest coming back downstairs, but suddenly – a stroke of luck! The boys found their art kits sent to them by their loving grandmother back at Christmas time.

As I write this they are coloring and perhaps painting using their art kits. While I’m slightly concerned about what they are doing, I have them set up on the kitchen table where I can hear them. So far we’ve only had one spill and no fights. Who knows? I might actually finish all of my work this morning while my kids are awake – what a novelty!

I have a few thanks to offer up for this unexpected productivity.

First I’d like to thank the Wii for providing distraction in the form of Mario Brothers. My oldest will play you for hours given the opportunity. In another year or two, the younger man will likely start playing with great intensity as well. I can expect a tremendous productivity boost at that time.

Next I’d like to thank my cheap vinyl tablecloth from Wal-Mart. For only 5 dollars, I have the peace of mind that no matter how much they color, paint and spill water in the breakfast room as I type, nothing will stick to my table. I might go in there in a few minutes and find a huge mess, but with the use of the vinyl table cloth, while not very attractive, the mess will be easy to clean-up. I should give a shout-out to the tile underneath the table as well for catching some of the mess for me.

Finally, I’d like to thank the early morning hours. It’s a proven fact around here that my children are much more cooperative and independent in the morning hours than they are in the evening. Once the day is winding down they are whiny and needy, but right now they are enjoying themselves. They are honing their coloring skills, and they are creating a heck of a mess, but they are content. I don’t feel as though this would be the case in the afternoon or evening. It gives me hope for the summer months – maybe I can sleep in until 5 and still be productive!

Now I’m off to the last piece of work for the day while I still have a chance. May your day be as productive as well.

As I write this I’ve been up for 15 hours and spent roughly 7 of those preparing kids for the big standardized test next week. If you think teaching or parenting is an easy job, I’d beg to differ, but that’s a post for a different day. Rather than a sobbing, whiny poor-pitiful-me story (too late!), I’m going to be proactive and see if a change is in order. I’m going to reverse my days.

Naps, No More!

Once upon a time when I was only a WAHM – not a WOHM and WAHM at the same time, I got the advantage of serious naptimes. I could do most of my work during naps, finish up at night and pretend to get plenty of sleep. Then the naps disappeared. Now the bedtime is moving a bit later as the kids get older. Soon we’ll be starting up sports that push into the evenings. I’m running out of time! Of course, I could write while they are up and playing Wii or whatever, but I like to think that their waking hours when we’re all home from school is the time I give them exclusively every day.

So that leaves me two choices: later nights or earlier mornings.

Scheduling Necessary Changes

I’ve been rocking the later nights, but I’ll be honest with you –it’s starting to really suck. I’m unproductive without massive amounts of efforts and caffeine to gear myself up for work every night. Even when I am working like a champ, I’m sacrificing sleep or time I need to do other things around the house, which plays mental havoc on the tired brain. Most of the time I’m just plodding along when I’d be flying if I had even an ounce of the considerable energy the rest of my life requires.

So I’m going to try things the other way for a while.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to get up at 5am. The boys won’t be getting up until 7am most likely. (For the record, I’m writing this Friday night – days ahead of the posting date. I amaze myself with my dedication to my sacred calendar). I’m going to write a single article, although it’s a doozy. It will probably take over an hour to piece it together and I have to leave time for teeth brushing and face washing and the sullen monitor staring that precludes a nice caffeine rush.

Hopefully I’ll knock out that work like nobody’s business and then I’ll have a new routine. On Sunday I’ll get up at 4 and make it a point to get to bed by 9 that night to get up at 4 the following morning. I get two uninterrupted hours in the morning (kids get up at 6:15ish on weekdays) to be brilliant when my mind is fresh and then I get to actually relax for five seconds at the end of the day.

Before you point out the obvious, I realize I’m only allowing myself seven hours of sleep every night, but that’s more than I’m getting now anyhow, so it’s not a huge concern at this point. Two hours might not sound like a lot of work time, either, but its’ roughly the amount of time I schedule for myself in the evenings since I write part-time, so that’s a not a big problem either. Or at least I don’t think it will be. We’ll find out.

This is a noble experiment, and by the time this post goes live, I’ll have some data to share. Of course, I probably will be back to nights out of sheer habit after five years, but I’m going to give it a try at least. What are working mothers if not flexible?