7 Things To Do When Studying As a Stay At Home Mom

Studying as an adult is never easy but studying as a stay at home mom is even more of a challenge, or is it? With an array of benefits attached to studying from home, such as the possibility to work around the children, no longer having to waste time and money traveling to a college/university while subsequently paying for childcare, it’s almost as if online courses were developed with the stay at home mom in mind.

In light of this, sometimes it may feel as though there aren’t enough hours in the day besides parenting to take on another task without burning yourself out. However, with the desire to provide a better future for you and your children, you may persist with a can-do attitude to begin your online course of choice.

‘By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.’ Benjamin Franklin

Concerning your online course, this quote specifies how the success of your studies is determined by what you do to prepare for it. The following Do’s provide you with a list of all the things you could do to make the most out of your studying and prevent you from feeling exerted within a few weeks of tackling your new priority.

7 Things To Do When Studying As a Stay At Home Mom

Do Set A Routine

You most likely have a routine ingrained in your daily life already such as; the time you wake-up, make breakfast, pack lunches, wake the children etc. Now it’s time to reset this routine in consideration of your study time. When you do this, think about your energy peaks each day, these are points where you feel highly energetic and focused. This may be following a brisk walk to school with the kids or mid-day before lunch, your energy points are personal to you.

Pinpointing your prime time of the day will allow you to understand when to allocate study into your schedule, as these are the occasions you will be most productive.

Do Start Projects Early

On mentioning the point above you are probably thinking you will have to devote all of your time studying to succeed in your course. However, providing you’ve started in advance there should be time for you to adopt a healthy balance between study and home life. This means as soon as you have a mock exam or an essay question to fulfill, plan the amount of time it will reasonably take for you to complete this task, and then add extra time on top of this. This is a concept advised to most students, however especially crucial for moms. The reason being because of how fragile stay at home moms schedules are, you are most likely the person who needs to rearrange their schedule last minute to suit unexpected events, such as taking care of children  who can’t attend school because they’re sick, or to put together a makeshift costume last minute because your son forgot to give you the letter from school about a fancy dress day happening the next day.

Starting your work as soon as possible, planning the number of study sessions you think you will need and then adding time on top of this will enable you to allow time for the challenging events that pop up when you are a stay at home.

Do Save Time

Setting a new routine is also about rearranging priorities and perhaps even demoting some tasks that are not of great importance. For instance, your priorities may look something like this; looking after the children, paying bills, cleaning, cooking and food shopping, these are vital things you must do to keep your home life running. However, to make time for your new priority of studying for your masters in computer engineering online or your virtual events management course, you may need to reduce or even replace existing tasks.

For example, you may opt for online food shopping on a fortnight, opposed to spending time going to and from the superstore every week. At the moment you might clean your house twice a week, although once a week may suffice. Or instead of taking a long 2-hour journey every two weeks to see relatives, you could reduce this to just once a month. All of the above suggestions are examples of how you could change some of your routine tasks to save time, to create more time for your new priority to study.

Do Create A Study Space

Creating a study space, ideally in a closed room away from your homes hustle and bustle gives you a private area to think and concentrate, to shut away from the daily stresses and focus on what you need to achieve. Not to mention, having your own set space is great to spend the majority of your time here studying and keep all of your work organized and locked away from toddlers with crayons.

Do Switch Locations

In consideration of the point above, you should have a central spot you can study however working in the same place over and over again can become quite stagnant, which is why switching up could do you the world of good. If you have a laptop or a textbook, you can move your study space to wherever you please. If this means the kids are at school, you might head to a nearby coffee shop, or simply moving to another room in your home will suffice.

In the summertime, in particular, this is a beautiful time to take advantage of. You could lay out on a picnic blanket on the grass beneath the relaxing rustle of trees, being outside is a good alternative to studying indoors and will also benefit your wellbeing being amongst nature.

Do Make You Time

It’s in your best interests to put down the books, nappies, and utensils once in a while to indulge in some much-needed you time. This could be anything from taking a nap to gain back the energy taken out of your from the new routine you’re adjusting too, or it might mean reading a novel, having a bubble bath or going for a long walk. You may feel convinced that you don’t need a break from your daily routine, however not taking a timeout is a surefire route to self-destruction for anyone trying to juggle a busy home and study life.

Handling one of the most challenging jobs in the world as a stay at home mom and juggling this with studying a new discipline is possible for you to achieve,  it just takes some careful planning and preparation using the points highlighted above.