Mummy-tasking - How to spend more time with your kids when you are too busy at work?

Are you feeling guilty for not spending enough time with your kids? Do you only get to see them before you rush off for work, and when you get home at night, they're already asleep. So on the average, you only get to spend just a few minutes with them daily.

Well, I guess this is the situation in almost all households, including mine.

I know, if we only had a choice, we'd rather spend all our time with our little ones. But then we live in the real world so we have to face reality. And reality includes bills to pay, food to put on the table and a host of other obligations. So we really have to work and earn a living.

Here are some suggestions on how working parents in Singapore can spend more time with their kids.

1. Rearrange your work schedule

Rearrange your schedule so you're free to "be a parent" when your kids are awake. Most managers don't necessarily care when you do your work from day to day, as long as it gets done. What you can do is to ask to start work one hour later so you can send off your kids to school and replace that one hour at night, in your home office, after the kids have gone to bed.

2. Couple business trips with vacation time

Need to zip into Bangkok or KL for another meeting? Try to schedule your business trips on Mondays so you can treat your family to a vacation during the weekend.

3. Delegating responsibilities

If you are a manager, then you should start delegating some of your responsibilities to your employees. This way, you spend lesser time at work and more time with your kids. If you don't have any other employees, place a request for an intern.

4. Bring your children to work on some days

Tour them around your workplace so they will have an idea of what you do at work or you can ask them to help you with some of your tasks. If your kids are old enough, ask them to drop by your office to join you for lunch or for your coffee break.

5. Run your errands like grocery shopping during lunch hour

That way you can reserve the time after work and school for playtime with your kids.

6. Use your child care leave

An employee has full flexibility to use the childcare leave to spend time with his/her child. A child medical certificate is not required. An employee is entitled up to 6 days of childcare leave per year if he/she is covered under the Child Development Co-Savings Act.

7. Integrate work together time into your daily schedule

Do you have snail mails to send out? Have them put the stamps on the envelopes. Do you have some paper work to file, have them help you punch holes. While it might take more time in the beginning, you will see that kids can become your greatest helpers.

Some of these suggestions for working mums look very useful, although some are hard to put into practice.

What other ways can you think of that will help working mums have more time with their kids? Share with us in the comment box below!

Written by

Karen Mira

Working Motherstimeworking parents guilt