The Half-Done To-Do List That’s Actually My New Normal
I’m writing this with a sticky blue yogurt stain on the sleeve of my work sweatshirt, and a half-eaten Popsicle melting on the edge of my desk. Ten minutes ago I was on a check-in call with a client when my four-year-old dragged a dead ladybug into my home office, held it up to the camera, and asked why its legs didn’t move. I muted myself, turned the camera off, and promised him we’d bury it in the backyard after my call. That’s just how it goes now, right? I used to apologize for this stuff, all the time. Now I just text the client afterwards and say “sorry about the ladybug, that’s what happens when you work from home with small kids” and they usually reply with a story of their own.
I started working from home three years ago, right after my second kid turned one. Back then I thought I had it all figured out. I bought a fancy printable time blocking planner, color coded my days: 9 to 12 deep work, 12 to 1 lunch and play, 1 to 4 more work, 4 to 7 kid time and dinner, 7 to 8 clean up, 8 to 9 me and my partner time. I even bought one of those labeled drawer organizers for my desk to keep everything neat. Do you want to know what that organizer holds now? Three half-used tubes of glitter glue, a pack of fruit snacks that expired last December, two lost socks, and exactly one pen that actually works. The time blocking lasted a month and a half. The last time I stuck to it was the day my oldest came home from school with a stomach bug and threw up all over my new planner. I threw the whole thing in the trash after that.
I still have those days that make you want to crawl under the desk and never come out, though. Last month I had this big pitch for a project I’ve been wanting for a year. I got all dressed up, did my makeup, even blow dried my hair – which is something I haven’t done for a work call in at least two years. My partner said he’d take both kids to the park for the whole hour, no interruptions. Fifteen minutes in, the front door bangs open, and here comes my four-year-old, barefoot, holding this big dead frog he found by the slide, grinning like he just won the lottery. My partner is chasing him, yelling, trying to grab it before he gets to the office, and he still makes it right to the doorway, holds the frog up to my camera, and yells “MOM LOOK WHAT I FOUND!” I just froze, then started laughing, because what else do you do? I told the panel “that’s my quality control, he just checks that everyone on the call is nice” and they all laughed. I got the project, actually. But after the call I sat on the bathroom floor for ten minutes and had a little cry. Not because I was embarrassed, really. Just because I was tired of always having to explain why my life is messy, why I can’t just show up perfectly to every meeting like the people who don’t have kids waiting outside the door.
I used to try to make up for all the interrupted work time by staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning, finishing reports after the kids go to bed. I’d drag myself out of bed at 7, make breakfast, snap at the kids for taking too long to put their shoes on, and then spend my work day drinking three cups of coffee just to stay awake. It was a terrible cycle. I don’t do that anymore. If the work isn’t done by 8pm, it gets left on my desk for the next day. I learned that 90% of the stuff I thought was urgent actually isn’t. My boss once texted me at 9:30pm asking for a draft I’d been working on, and I just replied “I’ll send it to you first thing tomorrow, promise” and sent it at 7am. Nothing bad happened. No one got mad. The world didn’t stop turning.
I also stopped beating myself up for screen time. I used to feel like I was failing if my kids watched more than an hour a day, because all the parenting accounts say that’s bad. Last week I had a big deadline, so I let them put on three episodes of that cartoon they like, and they ate goldfish crackers off paper plates on the living room floor, and they didn’t fight once. I got my deadline done ten minutes early, and then we walked to the ice cream truck down the street and got cones. They still talk about that afternoon. No one’s brain rotted from two extra hours of TV. It’s fine.
The other day I was folding laundry after dinner, and my oldest, who’s seven, came and sat next to me on the couch. He said “I like that you work from home. Because when I get sad at recess, I can text you on my watch and you always text back right away.” I almost cried, because I’ve spent so long thinking I’m failing at both – working badly and parenting badly – that I never thought he’d notice something good about this mess. But then an hour later, he asked me to help him build that new Lego spaceship he got for his birthday, and I said “five more minutes, I just have to answer one more email” and then I forgot, and he went to bed disappointed. I apologized this morning, and he said it’s okay, we can do it this weekend.
That’s just how it is, right? There’s no perfect balance. There’s no big secret to managing work and time with kids. It’s just half-done to-do lists, ladybug burials, dead frogs on camera, good moments that catch you off guard, and small mistakes you apologize for and try again tomorrow. I still have bad days. Last week I forgot to go to the school bake sale that I signed up to bring cookies to, and my kid had to stand there with nothing while all the other kids had treats. I still hide in the pantry eating the chocolate I hid from the kids when it all gets too much. I still look at my to-do list on Friday afternoon and realize I only got three out of ten things done. But this is my life, messy and half-done, and most days, that’s enough.
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