Navigating the work to home transition

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In this episode, I am going to talk about creating a work-to-home transition. This is the moment of the day that is the most crucial to creating work-life balance. It's that moment where the demands of your family meet the exhaustion of your workday and you can set yourself up to feel connected and present by creating a short 10-minute transition routine. I will be breaking down the 4 parts of a good transition, explain why each are important and then give examples for each.

Topics in this episode:

  • What is the work-to-home transition?

  • The two things you need to let go of at the end of the work day

  • Why it doesn’t always feel easy to transition from work to home

  • 4 crucial parts that create a good transition

Show Notes:

Want some additional support to creating work-life balance? Check out the Work-Life Balance Formula, a free training where I teach you the exact equation for feeling present at home and happy at work. Click here to sign up: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.net/balanceformula

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Transcription

Intro

There is one moment in the day that most women point to as being the most challenging: I like to call it “the transition”. It's that moment where the demands of your family meet the exhaustion of your workday. It's the crucial few hours you have between the moment you stop working to the moment your kids go to sleep. 


The average working mom spends about 2-3 hours with their kids at this time and for many, this is the ONLY time they see them during a workweek. 


Those few hours are crucial. And how you feel during those hours either put you in the mindset that it was all worth it or that you are a terrible mom and should just quit.  


So, in today’s episode, I am going to be talking about creating a work to home transition. I will break down exactly what a transition is, why it’s important, how it’s going to put you in a mindset for success, and give you all the essential parts to make it.


Let’s get to it. 


Welcome to the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you’re looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home then this is the place for you. I’m your host Rebecca Olson, let’s get to it! 


The transition period.

There is one moment in the day that most women point to as being the most challenging: I like to call it “the transition”. It's that moment where the demands of your family meet the exhaustion of your workday. It's the crucial few hours you have between the moment you stop working to the moment your kids go to sleep.


The average working mom spends about 2-3 hours with their kids at this time and for many, this is the ONLY time they see them during a workweek. When I was first back from maternity leave, my 6-month-old daughter started going to sleep at about 5:45 pm. That was one hour after I got home from work, and I had to scramble home for that 1 hour. Then I would dream feed her before I went to bed and that was it. That was all I got. 


Those 60 minutes were crucial. And how I felt during those minutes would either put me in the mindset that it was all worth it and working or I was a terrible mom and I should just quit. 


A balanced parent feels connected and present with their kids when they are with them and in order to do that, you need to create a transition routine that is going to help you enter into the time with your kids 100% ready to be with them.



So, in today’s episode, I am going to be talking about this transition time. What it is, what essentials need to be a part of it, and some examples of what it might look like.  


What is the transition period?

Ok, let’s start with why I call it the transition because it feels similar to the way a toddler experiences transitions. When a toddler transitions from sleep to awake or the house to the car seat or home to daycare or inside the house to outside the house it can be painful. We all have memories of having to force our kids into car seats because our kid does not want to be taken away from wherever they are and whatever they're doing and be placed in something new.  They let you know how much they DON’T like this, by kicking and screaming and arching their back and making it really difficult for you to buckle them in.


Kids don't like to transition. Kids like to know exactly what to expect so they can be fully prepared and know what's coming. They don’t want to be taken from their toys to go eat. They like things to be the same.


Although we do not tend to yell and scream and tantrum outwardly, for most working moms we struggle internally during transitions. It's hard to go from the pace of work to the pace of home. It's hard to go from the complexity of our work to the simplicity of making dinner. It's hard to go from the high of achieving big results and getting lots done to diaper changes and screaming bath time. It's hard to go from checking your phone or your email all day and being very connected, to not at all.


We want to be present with our kids.

We all know what we want, we want to be present and focused during these few hours we have with our kids. We want them to feel like they are enough. Like we experienced enough of their giggles and joy and presence so that we don’t feel guilty or regretful. But for most ambitious women this takes some work. We have to build in some transition time in order to do it.


What parenting advice says about transition periods.

So most parenting advice I would tell you that if you want to make this transition go easier, you need to build in some kind of routine or time in order to do it. This is where you give your child warnings for when a transition is going to come, so they can begin to prepare. “Hey buddy I want to let you know that in five minutes we're going to need to put on your shoes and your jacket and walk out the door.” or “Sweetheart, I know you're having a lot of fun, and in 10 minutes we're going to need to brush your teeth, put on your pajamas and pick out a book for bedtime.” We all do this, we prepare our kids for the transition that’s about to come. The other parenting advice you’d likely hear is to validate their emotions when they don't want to leave their toys, or go and brush their teeth. You should expect that they're not going to want to do that and they are going to let you know with tears and tantrums, and throwing toys. And what we need to do is remind them, and remind ourselves, that nothing has actually gone wrong in these moments, they are simply letting you know they don't like that they have to transition, and the more we can validate those feelings the faster they will pass. 


Well, the same is true for us as working moms, we need transition time in order to help us prepare for whatever is next. We need space, we need to remind our brain that this is happening, we need to allow for our emotions, we need to set ourselves up to go from one space to the next as seamlessly as possible. 


What it’s like for working moms without a transition period.

Let me give you an example. My client Audra had about a 10-minute commute from work to home. She worked with patients all day, sometimes without a break, and then she would race home and attempt to be with her six-month-old daughter for about 2 hours before she went to sleep. But when she got home it was hard to turn her brain off from work because she had no transition. She would often replay conversations she had with clients during the day, think about all of the things that she wasn't able to accomplish, start to think about her first appointments the next day, she checked her phone for emails and correspondence that she wasn't able to get to. All the while doing tummy time with her daughter and attempting to give her undivided attention, but never really being able to. Usually, within 45 minutes it was time to feed her daughter dinner, then take a bath and put on pajamas, nurse, and then go down.  


But instead of feeling connected and filled with all of the good feelings that being with our kids can bring, she felt guilty, unfocused, like she should have done better, exhausted, just generally like she wasn’t giving her daughter her best.


And then, of course, because she never felt like she was getting enough time with her daughter and she wasn’t her best, she questioned if she should pull back her hours and if she was doing the right thing by working, and it was this snowball effect of questioning herself that was a result of not feeling like she had enough time with her daughter.


How my client was able to feel present with her child after work.

In coaching Audra and I worked on a transition, we built it out together. We created a structured 10 minutes that she did in her car where she focused on letting go of work and preparing her brain for what lay ahead at home. Immediately she began to notice a difference. An ability to focus on her daughter, an attitude of flexibility so that the evening didn't feel so rigid, and just a general sense of enoughness. Like the time she was spending with her daughter was enough and it was quality time. 


The simple routine was the difference between feeling balanced and unbalanced. In control instead of at the mercy of the day. Tired vs exhausted. 


And that is what I want for all of you as well. I want to help you come up with your own transition, so no matter how much time you spend with your kids at the end of a long workday you still feel connected, flexible, focused, and like it was enough.


This is a crucial part of a balanced day so you don’t want to just leave it up to chance. You want to create a routine that will allow you to have full control over how you show up with your family so that you are not at the whim of your workday or your feelings in order to be showing up as the mom you want to be and having the life you want to have.


How to transition from work to home.

Ok, so let’s talk about the structure of a transition. 


There are 4 parts: 


Clean up

Celebrate

Decide

Visualize


We are just going to walk through each of them and I will explain what each part is and why it’s important. This whole transition should take between 10 – 30 minutes. I’ll explain why it might take longer in some cases. And even how you can get it down so it really is about 10 minutes if you want it to be.


Ok. Part 1 of the transition: clean up. This is the step that can really vary depending on how your day went and the kind of work you do. Some people might have a lot to clean up, others not so much, it really all depends on how your day goes.


Tie up loose ends from the day, but don’t carry on working.

The overall goal in this part is to wrap up any loose ends from the day. Two things tend to stick with us when we move from our work life to our home life. The first are tasks that you were not able to finish. Now in the transition time, this is not space to try to accomplish those tasks that are not finished so much as document them so they do not linger in our heads. I want to be very clear on this, this is not active work time. Once you head into the transition time you are winding down, you are not doing more work. You are essentially preparing yourself for the next day and letting go of the current day. This is time to document where you have left off in certain projects, you might communicate some basic details to a coworker, or you may add to your to-do list for the next day.


Release your emotions from the day before returning home.

The second saying that tends to stick with us when we move from work life to our home life is our emotions. At the end of a workday, there are usually lingering emotions. Maybe you had a hard conversation with someone that you are still processing. Or a presentation that didn't quite go the way you wanted. When we enter into home life we want to have processed through and let go of any emotions that are lingering. To be honest this can be as simple as you taking several deep belly breaths, 3 to 5. Bringing to mind the moment, or the day, or the conversation that is still lingering, acknowledging how you feel and labeling it, and then giving yourself permission and space to feel it. *Breathe in and out* big breaths, and then bring to mind the conversation and moment, letting all of those feelings bubble up - as they should. Imagining them for a moment, holding space for it, and then simply imagining yourself letting go. This can take 1 or 2 minutes at most. For others that might not be the way, they let go, they may need to process a little bit more verbally, and they might spend 5 minutes journaling. They have a notepad or journal that they take, set a timer, and let themselves get out of their head all of the things they’re thinking. That is an easy way to wrap up the loose emotion and thoughts that are lingering with you that you don't want to bring into your home life.


The goal of this part is to wrap up any loose ends, it can be done in so many different ways. We just want to explore for you what is going to be the best way for you to let go of the tasks that were unfinished and the emotions that are still attached to your day.


Celebrate your day and focus on the positive!

Part 2 is to celebrate! Studies show that when we celebrate we release dopamine into our brains which makes us feel good and gives us natural energy. Our brains are very good at remembering the things that didn't go well during our day, that’s not hard for us. What our brains need to do and what we have to spend intentional time doing, is to focus on the positive and things that have gone well. And that’s why this is an important part of the transition because we don’t do this naturally - most people don’t do this naturally. We have to intentionally decide to think about the things that went well. So in this section what I encourage you to do is to write down 5 things you are celebrating from your workday. Just 5. Find 5 things. Maybe it’s a task that you accomplished or the way that you accomplished something, or your approach to a particular problem, or person or the way that you held space for a co-worker or employee - whatever it is, find 5 things to celebrate from the day.


Part 3 is to decide. Specifically, to decide the three things that you are going to accomplish tomorrow. This is essentially your to-do list for tomorrow but I don’t want you to have your full to-do list in front of you because that tends to bring up a lot of overwhelm. Instead, I want you to write out on a sticky note, or a different piece of paper, whatever it is, the 3 tasks that you are going to accomplish tomorrow and put them on your desk. Then put your to-do list somewhere else. Stick in a draw, or turn it over, or put it somewhere else where you don’t even get to see it. I just want you to focus on these 3 things that you are going to accomplish. And I want you to do it the day before because that's going to help you to not feel overwhelmed and enter in with momentum the next day. Where you’re not sitting there the next day thinking “hmm, what should I do today, what’s most important, oh let me just check some email..”, We don’t want any of that. We want you to really decide, and focus your brain on exactly what you should accomplish tomorrow so that you can hit the ground running.


Visualize your perfect evening.

The last part of your transition is to visualize. Now, if you haven’t done a whole lot of this, that’s ok. There isn’t much to it, but it is extremely impactful to your brain because you are painting a picture of what you want your evening to look like. You’re visualizing the rest of your evening, your family time. It gives your brain a sort of mental image to go off of for what you’re shooting for, for your day. You’re kind of preemptively visualizing what you want out of your evening.


Now all you really have to do is close your eyes, take 3 deep belly breaths, and imagine your evening feeling calm and focused and balanced. Visualize your interactions with your kids and your husband and what it's going to feel like when you come home through that door, try to be as detailed as possible, maybe focusing on one specific moment and getting as specific as possible with it. One interaction you may have, or how you’re going to feel making dinner, or what it’s going to feel like having snuggles and hugs with your kids when you walk in the door. The point is to not just paint a picture but elicit an emotion that you want to create for yourself in your evening.


The 4 parts of a work to home transition.

Ok, so there you go. Clean up, Celebrate, Decide and Visualize. The 4 parts of a work-home transition. 


Remember the point of the transition, just like with our kids, is to give your brain a heads up that you will be moving into something new, to expect some discomfort in the process, and to normalize the emotions that come with it. You're giving yourself intentional space to let go of work and enter into your home. 


As you begin to implement this you are going to feel more accomplished, organized, and prepared at work and connected & present at home. 


You can do this ambitious and balanced working moms, let’s get to it.

Rebecca Olson