Time Management & Organizational Tips for Working from Home

Kellie: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. It’s Kellie with Kentucky SPIN. I wanted to reach out to you guys and talk to you about time management and organization. I’ve been working from home for about two years, full time. I love working from home. I think it’s wonderful, it serves my family very well. I had a hard time in the beginning, because I was very easily distracted.

And I imagine that a lot of you, know what I’m talking about right now, as many of you have just been thrown into working from home and you don’t really know what to do or how to get organized, especially if you’re used to working in an office setting. So I do have some tips for you. The first one being is to take a look at where you’re spending your time. Could you, be spending your time on your cell phone? Cell phone was a huge one for me. Or even [00:01:00] Googling things on the internet, looking at things on Lowe’s or Amazon. Those are the websites I tend to navigate towards. Or, you know, is spending time on your phone or the internet, you know, in another way, doing housework, doing laundry, getting, you know, wrapped up in the TV, whatever it is, determine where your time is going.

You can keep a time log. I recommend doing it hourly or maybe even every 30 minutes, so you can see how you’re spending your time. If your days are not being productive. The next thing that I definitely suggest, is setting up a workspace that’s gonna keep you from getting distracted so easily.

And I’m seeing on Facebook that many of you are now working from home, have set up a, a desk space for you, for yourselves. And I know that, lots of people have theirs beautifully [00:02:00] set up in front of windows or whatever. I can not do that. My desk faces the wall, in front of my desk on the wall is bulletin board with all the information that I needed to access quickly, and that I use often. That seems to be the only place I can get anything done when it comes to work. And then the last thing that I’m going to talk to you about is a planner. You may use, you know, Outlook. You may use Google calendar, you might have a paper calendar, you may have a wall calendar, whatever it is that you have, make sure that you have something that really works for you.

I spent a lot of money looking for planners or buying planners and then looking for new planners because I spent all this money on a planner and it wasn’t what I needed. I’ve bought inserts. I’ve [00:03:00] bought, just all kinds of stuff. I’ve bought planners online, to download and put together. But nothing really met all of my needs.

I would get really, really frustrated because the way they’re laid out, you would have your months in the front, you know, your monthly calendar is in the front. Then somewhere in the middle you might have a weekly calendar. And then, in the back, you may have a place for notes or birthdays or something else.

Something that I needed was, I needed monthly planning capabilities. I needed daily planning capabilities I needed shopping lists. I needed a place to write down messages as I checked voicemail. I needed a place for staff meeting notes. I mean, I just needed a lot of things and I couldn’t find a planner that had those, all those things that I [00:04:00] needed.

And I didn’t want to have a bunch of different planners. I wanted to have one that no matter where I was or what I needed, I could have it with me and it would be everything I needed would be right there. So, I got online and, well first I made a list of the tabs that I needed in my binder. Then I got online and I started looking at documents and I started modifying them.

Put it all together how I wanted it so that, my monthly calendar is on the left side of my binder and then the daily planner was on the right side of the binder, straight across from the monthly. So I wasn’t having to waste all that time flipping back and forth. So I put everything together, I bought book covers from Hobby Lobby and some of the metal rings. And I put it all together myself, and it has proven to be a huge, huge time saver for me. [00:05:00] So, if any of you have any questions or you want to talk further about how I put my planner together, I’m happy to do that. You can reach out to me via the Kentucky SPIN website and I look forward to hearing from you or talking to you soon.

Michaela: [00:05:20] Hey y’all, this is Michaela with Kentucky SPIN. I’m just wanted to talk to you a little bit about time management. I have been working, mostly from home for about a year now, and my son has been on homebound for that time as well. So, we are a little bit more used to this, than a lot of you guys right now. Just starting the work from home journey and schooling your kids at the same time.

And let me tell you, it’s difficult. It’s not easy. I am a single mother, trying to work full time out of the house and having my son here. And especially if you have a kid with disabilities, y’all, let me just tell you it’s about impossible. So don’t feel bad if you are [00:06:00] not mastering this, cause I’ll just be real up front and honest and tell you after a year, I don’t have it mastered either. And that’s okay. One thing that we do do, that has been really helpful, I have a magnetic calendar, dry erase calendar on my refrigerator. And color coded expo markers to go with it. I got the whole set on Amazon for like 14 bucks.

It has saved my life. Look it up. I’m telling ya. And so, in pink, we write the days that mom has zoom meetings, that mom has conference calls, where mom’s going to be doing a workshop online and cannot be bothered. That means Caleb automatically knows, okay, I’m going to be off the wifi during this time.

I’m going to be quiet and I am not going to bother mom unless something bad is wrong, the house is on fire or I’m bleeding, seriously all. Lucky, I guess cause he’s 12, and starting to grasp those concepts. For younger kids, you can do the same kind of schedule with like pictures and things and kind of let them know, what they’re expected to be doing while you’re working.

Give them a task, [00:07:00] and make sure that they know, you know, what to do. So that helps me out a lot. Making sure that he, and he also, we put everything on the calendar, down right from shower, we get Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Those are shower days. And he knows that’s what he should be doing. Anything like that.

And like I said, if you have younger kids, get your visual schedule.  If you need help with that, reach out to Kentucky SPIN and we can help you, make a visual schedule. I’d be glad to talk you through anything that I know or we can get you out to your people that have great resources as well.

But the main thing I just want to tell you guys is, when you have a child with a disability, oftentimes it does not look like what you’re going to see your other friends on social media. It’s not going to be this picture perfect situation. It’s going to be a struggle and you’re going to have good days and bad days and you are gonna feel like you are regressing, you’re going to feel like things are going backwards. But let me just tell you, that’s okay. Our picture does not have to look like everyone else’s because it’s [00:08:00] not going to. So don’t hold yourself to that standard. And know that even if you don’t see it, right now in the day to day, you are still making progress.

And I can tell you, now that we’ve been doing this for a year, education was always my number one priority for my son. I have stressed for months worrying that he’s not getting the quality of education that he could be with a homebound teacher coming out to see him three times a day instead of sitting in a classroom all day, every day.

But a year later, I can tell you the gains I have seen. Are far beyond what we could have learned in the classroom, the daily living skills, that we’re learning. He’s learning to do chores for the first time ever. I didn’t have time to work on that, being a full time parent working outside the home and him being at school every day.

We were just trying to survive y’all. But we’ve seen so many gains, socially, emotionally. And I wouldn’t trade it. And I hope that, this time ends up being the same for you guys. And that you see a lot of positives. [00:09:00] I’ll also tell you, it really helps if you can change your perspective. And instead of looking at those goals you aren’t hitting, instead of focusing on everything that you’re losing, look for your blessings.

Count those blessings. Look for the things that you wouldn’t have thought about before and look for the positives. Keep your focus on that. Keep your focus on maintaining your positives. And if you need some help, guys, reach out. That’s what we’re here for at Kentucky SPIN. If we can’t help, we know somebody that can.

So I just wanted to tell you, you’ll get through this. We will all get through this together and I hope you’ll have a wonderful day.

Stella: [00:09:38] Well, hey everyone, it’s Stella Beard was Kentucky SPIN, I just wanted to take a few minutes and talk to you a little bit about organization tips, time management, while we’re all working at home.

Because this is definitely a different feel for a lot of folks right now. Fortunately, I have worked from home for the past couple of years, so this is [00:10:00] like, just no brainer to me. But I wanted to give you all some tips of things that I’ve been doing in the middle of this that is a tad bit different now than what I’ve had to do in the past.

So, for example. My family is home with me now. They usually are not. So I’ve had to organize my day a little different to accommodate everybody else being in the house. One of the things that I do, the very first thing I do every day is I get up and I’m making my bed because to me, that is the start of how your day should be.

Fresh, clean, make up your bed. So when you walk in that room, when you’re getting ready and you see the bed is made, guess what? You’re not going to get back in it. The second thing that I do, every day regardless, is I take a shower. And I get dressed, like with real clothes on. And that has been a struggle for some of us because a lot of people would joke and say, “Oh, you work from home, you probably work in your pajamas all day.”

No, I get dressed, I put my makeup on. That’s the third thing I [00:11:00] do is put my makeup on and get ready for my day. And I think that is so very important for us to do. When I’m up and I’m dressed and I’m out of my bed and I’m in my office, I’m much more productive that way. The other thing I do is I always make sure that I write down a to-do list that I know what my day is going to look like.

And I think that is real important. So I’ve brought a couple of things here just to show you. We have staff calls weekly. So one of the things that I do is I have a specific notebook that I keep all of my staff call notes in. So that way I’m able to go back quickly and see what we talked about last week.

It helps me remember what I’m supposed to do, because I can’t remember unless I write it down. The other thing that I have that is very important for me is I have a project notebook, and in the front of that book I’ll have a to do list, but then I also have, things that I’m working on in here, and I use a highlighter.

I use different colored ink, things like that. I’ll love office supplies. Of course, I’m going to have everything that [00:12:00] I need in my office, so that I’m able to work. The other thing I do is also just keep a running to-do list. And I don’t tear to pages out even after I’ve completed the task. Cause I like to go back and see what I’ve completed and what I still need to do.

And then I transfer those things I need to do to a new sheet. It just helps me keep myself organized and stay focused. I love to use the Google calendar. So, all of my activities, personal, work, whatever is on my calendar so that I’m able to get those frequent reminders that help so much. But here’s the thing, we’ve got people at home now with us.

My family is here. My daughter is here from college. My son is not in school, my son Clayton, who has an intellectual disability, I’m having to keep him going. So you have to find what works best for you. My office is in the back of our living room. So I’ve had to tell my kids, now that I’m home, “Hey, I’ve got a call coming up.  Don’t bother me. Get off the wifi.” Because we live in the country and I want to make [00:13:00] sure I have enough wifi.

And then you have dogs also that live here with you. So they hear things and they go run out and start barking. So you have to really begin to manage your time and stay focused. And I think that is so important,  for us to begin just to think about that, what are you doing to stay efficient? What are you doing to stay organized? If you need to download an app to do that, to send you reminders, I encourage you to do that. It is so very, very important. Those reminders keep me going. That’s why I had that to-do list with me all the time.

So I know. What I’m supposed to do. So regardless of the distractions that you have, like your dog Sparky or kids coming down and saying something to you, set boundaries so that your family knows this is my work time, this is what I’m doing right now. And then also take breaks. Take those frequent breaks.

Five or 10 minutes, get up, go take a walk, go outside, do something like that so you can come back and you can stay focused. If you need help with any of these [00:14:00] tasks or anything like that, we are here at Kentucky SPIN to help you. We would love to help you with some apps or anything like that that you may need to stay focused.

So do your best. Remember, the first thing you need to do every day is make up your bed and get dressed. Have a great day. Bye bye.