How to Cope With Snow Days When You Work At Home

It’s wonderful when the kids reach school age and you’re working at home. Suddenly you have all this time to work on your job or home business. But then winter comes, and sometimes that means you get hit by a snow day. It isn’t always fun to cope with snow days when you work at home.

Unlike regular school holidays and weekends, you don’t always get much warning for a snow day. Most times, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s coming in the weather forecast, but not always. We don’t get much snow here, but I remember one day when snow wasn’t even in the forecast, but it started snowing right at the end of the school day. That made pick up time… interesting. I was picking up several kids that day, and walking them to my house, five minutes away. I grabbed every jacket in the house, and all the gloves, and it was a good thing I did because none of them had jackets with them that day. Got them home, made hot chocolate, and it was all good.

If snow days are a normal part of your student’s school year, you need to have plans in place so you don’t lose more work time than you’re willing and able to give up.

You might want to play in the snow too, time permitting.

Plan Ahead For Snow Days When You Work At Home

Planning ahead for snow day activities will help you to cut down on lost productivity. What can the kids do when they aren’t at school on a day you’d normally be working? How much can you reasonably expect to get done?

Have several activities planned that the kids will enjoy. They probably won’t want to play in the snow all day, although that may take up a part of the day. If you can do that early, you may even tire the kids out, which should give you some clear time to work.

Snow days are special to kids, so keep it fun for the most part. You may get some great ideas for things the kids can do when it’s snowing just by asking them in advance what they would like to do when it has snowed too much for them to go to school.

Art and craft supplies are great when kids are of an age to enjoy using them without making a gigantic mess for you to clean up later. Keep up a good supply of the things your kids like to use the most, such as:

• crayons
• paints
• coloring books
• colored pencils
• glue
• scissors
• play dough
• beads.

Remember the television and computer for the kids too. They may be quite content to take it as a day to veg out. Just make it a special day without the usual limits on screen time if you like. An occasional day of too much screen time probably won’t hurt them… unless they get a little too wild with their video games or something.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that the kids may have their regular schoolwork to do as well. If their school does remote classes rather than give snow days to the kids, your kids may have a schedule of their own to adhere to. If they’re good about it, take advantage and get your work done at the same time!

Get Help

If the snow is bad enough that your spouse is home, enlist some help in caring for the kids. There’s no rule saying you have to do it all just because you’re the one who’s usually home with them. If your spouse has an extra day off because he or she can’t get to work (and don’t work remotely too), make sure they understand that you are at your work and need to work, so they get to deal with the kids. Tell the kids the same.

If you have local enough family or friends who would be willing to take the kids for the day, that’s another option. This may not be possible if the snow is too severe or no one lives that close to you. Take turns, and you’ll all benefit.

You may also want to invite a friend over for your kids. So long as the situation doesn’t cause a lot of arguments, having an extra kid over can actually help. It keeps the kids from asking you for things to do.

Know Your Employer’s Policies

If you work for someone else, you need to know what your employer’s policies are for days like this, especially if you don’t always work at home. Do you have flexibility or not? Some jobs give you a lot of leeway, but others don’t. You should already be aware of the rules if you regularly work from home.

One of the most important things to consider in many jobs is background noise. Whether you’re in a work meeting with coworkers or on the phone with a client, you may need to keep the kids quiet. Planning ahead is a huge help. So is a home office with a door you can close. Put up a do not disturb sign or a clock saying when you’ll be available so the kids know when to leave you alone. I made a Beware of Dragon sign for my door to have a little fun.

Be sure to communicate with your employer if you need to change your routine due to your kids having a snow day. Communication is vital when you work with others, especially if you have to make sudden changes in your routine.

Consider Taking The Day Off

If the kids are going to interfere too much with productivity, consider taking the day off. You may be able to make it up over the weekend, or just think of it as a plain old day off. Especially if you’re working for yourself and don’t have any immediate deadlines, there’s no reason to not enjoy the day a bit yourself.

Don’t take it off if it’s going to make things too hard for you later. Sometimes you really need to work. If that’s the case, find a way to make it happen.

This may include taking the daytime off, but staying up and working into the night. For some people, that’s the better work option anyhow, but if that’s not your habit it can be a tough choice to make.

Snow Days Make Treasured Family Memories

While you don’t have to make every snow day memorable (impossible if you get a lot of them!), do remember how much kids usually love their snow days. Find ways to make snow days fun when you work at home, even if you can’t participate that much yourself. Children have this awful habit of growing up too soon. Fit some fun in when you can.