On 12/21/19 I wrote down in my journal, that I wanted to work from home 50% of my work week as a Nurse. Well this alone has taught me that there is power in writing goals down, revisiting them, working them and following through. This also help reminds me that 2020 was bad, but in some ways it wasn't all bad.
So at this time in my Nurse life I was juggling home, work, and social life. This was pre-pandemic so social life was still a thing. A few pages before this journal entry, I wrote about how my family had all became sick in like a domino affect. I was thinking if I could just stay home to manage all of this, that would be ideal. It was becoming pretty overwhelming having to leave home, when home felt unstable at times. I mean motherhood is always a juggle all the time especially as a working mom. I find myself asking "How can I leave my sick family to go take care of patients and their families?". So in my head - if I could build my dream nursing job at that moment in my career it needed to include more flexibility in my schedule, hours, and my ability to pivot.
Here are a few tips that I learned along the way but would have been great if I had in place prior to working for home. Consider these first:
Boundaries: If you are switching to a career that is mainly done from in your home you have to establish a few boundaries. For example, what are your normal working hours (9-5pm) ? Stick to it, do not allow yourself leniency around these hours. Try to continue to hold yourself to this standard. What time would you usually arrive to work ? What time do you begin wrapping up your day to head home ? Keep all those things consistent. If you are anything like me, you may tell yourself "ok no rush since I don't have to drive anywhere" or "I'm already home so I can work a little later". This creeps into a place of pushing the boundaries you has set for yourself, and sets yourself up for blurred lines of work life and home life.
Home Office setup: To keep myself in a professional mindset I had to change my environment to reflect that. 2020 was definitely a challenge, because working from home also came with schooling from home. My office setup before I started working from home was "in process". I had a desk and a room, a few files but not a lot set up. Then I had to convert it to a half virtual learning space, and half home office and then make boundaries that. Yeah...what boundaries !
Resources: Like many of us my role converted to more of a virtual setting by force. So there was not much planning ahead for this because we were all trying to figure it out, in the midst of a pandemic. This meant converting a number of the resources that I used at my physical workspace into shareable documents, being creative in how I provided care to my patients over the phone or video, and making sure I had access to all things that help streamline this new process.
The Juggle is Real: I frequently recall a quote that I use regarding Lifestyle balance. Basically yes I am a mom, nurse, and wife however you will never catch all 3 in the room at the same time. Being at home working to my kids means from their perspective that I am mommy - period. They are waiting for me to entertain them, clean after them, care for them, and all of that other stuff that I am to other people doesn't really matter. This is true I am still mom, and this goes hand in hand with the boundaries tip. However, I have to think if I wasn't home what kind of support would be in place ? Am I still able to rely on this support ? Working at home to my husband may mean, splitting parent duties, being available for non-work conversations (whats for dinner?),and sometimes he is just too good of a distraction because we are Lovers & Friends (fr fr). The mastery of juggling is an everyday challenge while working from home, but I believe also remembering how I show up to the people who know me as more than a Nurse is equally important. Having those conversations with them of how I would like to structure the home life, to not sacrifice any parts of this is important as well.
So working from home sounds good, but make sure you consider a few of these tips if you are planning to make this change in your Nursing career. I hope this was helpful, and I will be sharing a few Nurse roles that have gained some recent popularity recently due to the demands of the pandemic.
Be ALL the things Nurse friends without the burnout!
Stay well,
Nurse Megs
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