11 Tips & Tools To Balance Part-Time Work With Motherhood

Real-life solutions for finding a better work-life balance between part-time work and stay-at-home motherhood.

A few years ago, my husband and I took our toddler to one of those waterpark monstrosities, with the tube slides that wind around the building like sea serpents. My daughter was just learning how to go down waterslides by herself, and I waded calf-deep in the pool to catch her.

I wore one of those waterproof lanyards meant to keep my phone protected, and had been taking tons of photos and videos, as parents do. It was the first time we'd taken a vacation in many months, and I wanted to remember every moment. At work, I'd taken pains to close out my projects, so I could focus on being present on vacation. For a brief second, I felt like everything was perfectly balanced.

Then I got a stream of frantic Slack messages while in the pool. It was the corporate version of an emergency. My manager insisted I fix the issue right then. My laptop was in our hotel room, lying in wait for such an emergency, which tended to appear constantly on nights, weekends, and days off. I left my daughter with my husband to address the issue (which anyone on the team could have fixed). When I finished, my manager asked if I would have time to do one other thing. I was still sitting there two hours later. 

What people don't talk about is the emotional burden of constantly being on call, of summoning your Work Self even in the midst of finding your Home Self.

I sometimes wonder why I allowed this to happen, but then, I know exactly why. Parents in the workplace are told they have to be grateful for any flexibility, and we're conditioned to fear the consequences if we don't fall in line. After all, we're replaceable, right? That I made a good salary, had vacation days (which were not vacation days, because I was always expected to bring my work laptop and keep on top of email), and flex hours—all that should have been enough.

But that day, I learned that it really, really wasn't. What people don't talk about is the emotional burden of constantly being on call, of summoning your Work Self even in the midst of finding your Home Self. The certainty of receiving that familiar, dreadful ping off-hours.

Now, years later, I'm in a very privileged place in my life where I do have true flexibility and boundaries, thanks in part to a few tools I've learned along the way. My friends are beginning to go back to work after staying home with kids, and several have asked me about strategies for this allusive work-life balance. I'm no expert. The truth is: work and life aren't always perfectly balanced. But when you feel drastically imbalanced, that's when you know it's time to step back and reassess. 

These are the tactics I use to get closer to my ideal work-life balance as a mother blending part-time work with caregiving.

1. Set Your Priority List

I'm being incredibly literal about this one. Sit down with a piece of paper and number it 1-10 and list the priorities in your life. Include family, friends, work, hobbies, special projects, housework—anything that takes up a chunk of your day and mindspace. Then post your list somewhere you can see it: In your office, by your mirror in the bathroom, on your nightstand. Look at it often. When I see my daughter and husband's name at the top of my priority list, it's a visual reminder for me to refocus and take pride in the fact that, in one area at least, I have succeeded mightily.

Source: Clay Banks for Unsplash

2. Download a Task Tracker

Use a task tracker app (such as Any.do) or a notebook if you're a pen-and-paper person. I keep a to-do list for work and one for my personal life. You can schedule things out in advance for reminders, color-code your tasks, and even include subtasks. What this does is ensure that I always have a high-level view of what feels like a must and what feels like a "nice-to-have." I frequently move items up and down in priority, which is fine. By understanding what's truly urgent, I'm able to give myself breathing room, while making sure nothing essential gets missed.

3. Track Your Hours

If you work on an hourly basis, an app like Toggl (I use the free version!) allows you to track your hours by project, tags, and even rates in the premium version. I glance at the reports at the end of the week to make sure I'm not running over on hours. One week, I found myself working 40+ hours, even though I was only contracted for 20! I had to recalibrate, which, thanks to my manager, was a very easy conversation. Even if you work on a project basis vs. hourly, consider tracking your time anyway so that this can inform your rates and project management going forward. (Bonus tip: I use a free invoice generator to send to clients. It saves me loads of time, and though it's not super beautiful, it does the trick for my line of work.)

4. Lean on Gmail Scheduling

I used to be the coworker who took pride in responding the minute an email landed; Inbox Zero wasn't a goal; it was something I demanded of myself every single day (unreasonably). Of course, that's not sustainable, especially if you want to dive into a project or maintain overall sanity. There's the adage of "teaching others how to treat you," and I learned that if I was hyper-responsive, it set a precedent that I would always drop everything to email back.

So now, I try to schedule most of my emails, with the exception of truly urgent matters. Additionally, I sometimes work odd hours, and I do not want coworkers getting a 5 a.m. email from me (even with the implicit understanding I would never expect anyone to respond until they are ready). So by scheduling the email a few hours or a day in advance, during normal work hours, I set a reasonable boundary for myself and others.

I used to be the coworker who took pride in responding the minute an email landed. Inbox Zero wasn't a goal; it was something I demanded of myself every single day (unreasonably).

5. Schedule Slack Messages, Too

I want to respect others' vacation time and off-hours. Though, of course, no one is obligated to look at Slack while OOO, it just happens that it's on most of our phones. I compose Slack messages when I have time (sometimes, at night after my daughter is asleep, and I've finished watching the "Love is Blind" reunion special). I schedule them to go out in the morning, during normal work hours. This also makes me feel like I'm preparing myself a little more for the following day, without flouting anyone's boundaries.

Bonus tip: use Slack status updates often. Since I work part-time, my schedule isn't always clear to my coworkers. To make things explicit for my teammates, I update my status on Slack with an emoji that signals I won't be there (the alarm clock, but use whatever you want) until a specified time the next day.

6. Boomerang Emails to Yourself

Though Gmail has a scheduler built-in, Boomerang is another great free app to add to your professional toolbox. On busy days, I often get overwhelmed with email and am nervous the important ones will get lumped in with the less urgent ones. So now, I "Boomerang" emails to myself—basically, have them disappear from my inbox and set a designated time for them to reappear.

If someone is reaching out for a casual networking meet-up, perhaps I'll schedule it to come back into my inbox on a Friday, when I'm less wrapped up in day-to-day tasks. Boomerang also has some great tools for productivity, like delivering emails only at specific times of the day to encourage deep focus (you can set exceptions from, say, any important clients or coworkers).

7. Pause Your Inbox and Use Your Vacation Responder

Out-of-office replies are pretty standard now, but did you know you could also pause your inbox? I know if I get an email off-hour, I will try to answer it, because it's "just one little thing." But of course, the little things pile up, and even the small distraction takes time from my top priorities (see above).

In Gmail, there's a handy button to pause email delivery entirely for specified periods of time. You can add an auto-response if you want to provide an explanation. I pause emails on weekends and some nights when I want to be extra-focused on the family. And I usually add a little response that says, "In an effort to reclaim my work/life balance, I'm pausing my inbox for the weekend. I'll get back to you next week!"

I usually add a response that says, ‘In an effort to reclaim my work/life balance, I'm pausing my inbox for the weekend. I'll get back to you next week!’

8. Hide Apps From Home Screens

Though it is convenient to have Slack on my phone throughout my workday, I don't necessarily need to see it there off-hours (even if I've turned off notifications, which I've learned people can circumvent by sending you the message anyway). If you have an iPhone, you can move the app temporarily to your app library. This isn't necessarily intuitive to do every day, but I do make a point to do so on vacations! There are also apps that will hide your apps on a schedule, but I haven't explored those yet.

9. Let Your Calendars Work for You

I block out high-priority personal items on my work calendar, such as the time I take to walk my daughter home from school, or a necessary lunch break, or a doctor's visit. It gives me the ease of mind to focus on hearing my daughter download about her day in kindergarten or catching up with a friend who's meeting me for lunch. Google Calendars also allow you to set "work hours," which is immensely helpful for finding common meeting times. As for our personal family calendars, I share one with my husband, where we add all our daughter's activities and appointments, as well as our individual meetings and appointments. It's more efficient to not have to check in quite so often with one another about scheduling, and also, to have a high-level view of the week for our family!  

Source: Hannah Olinger for Unsplash

10. Divide and Conquer with Household "Tickers"

Glennon Doyle had a wonderful podcast episode on "We Can Do Hard Things" about household work and the feelings of overwhelm that can creep in when it's imbalanced in relationships. In it, she mentioned the concept of "tickers"—the running tallies of all the things that need to be managed, which often fall on women in relationships. In her marriage and co-parenting relationship with her ex-husband, Doyle talked about how the three adults were very purposeful about assigning tickers: One person was in charge of sports-related duties, while another made the travel plans, etc.

I had an honest discussion with my husband about our strengths and weaknesses and how we could split up household duties equitably. Once we established who would take care of what, we made a pact that the other person could completely forget about what was not in their "ticker list." So I will never have to think about car maintenance, gifts for our nieces and nephews, lawn care, or replacing light bulbs around the house. For me, a person who cannot escape her own mind, this freed-up brain space means everything. Plus, being able to trust your partner to take care of their share of the family needs is, sincerely, very attractive.

11. Know Which Balls Can Drop

A former coworker shared that on his first day, his manager said that his job was to "understand that you won't be able to catch every ball. The trick is knowing which ones can drop." That's changed my whole mindset when it comes to expectations for myself. Some balls are just not mine to balance; at least, not in this season of life. Bringing homemade tagine to the school potluck? Nope, not my ball, though kudos to the dad who loves to cook lovely meals for others. Checking in on with that old frenemy who always seems to make me feel bad about myself? No, thanks. Routinely sending photos to family members? They can refer to the family Instagram (which is, frankly, seldom updated). 

The balls that can drop in my life are different than yours, of course, but doing a clear assessment frees my mind and heart up to embrace the things that feel like mine.

Editor’s Note: This piece was first published in 2021. It has been updated for timeliness.