Self-Made Mom

Lisa Belkin (I feel like I keep quoting her) in today’s New York Times brings up an interesting point about working: can wasting time actually be productive?  She says:

Over the years I have come to see that the hours away from the writing are the time when the real work gets done. When a paragraph turns itself this way and that in a corner of my brain even while my fingers are buying books on Amazon.com. What appears to be wasted time is really jell time.

While I like the concept, and have come upon many good sites for those who want to kill time at work, I am not sure the argument for wasting time at work applies to me.  Why? Because I’m a working mom.  I feel like I don’t have time to waste time.

When I’m in the office, I’m constantly on the go, trying to accomplish all my tasks into a 24-hour work week. (I think my lack of time wasting is exacerbated by my part-time schedule.) If I don’t get my stuff done by Tuesday evening, well, I’ll be working at home on Wednesday, when I’m off of work.  My Thursdays are like a mad race to the finish line.  Gotta. Get. It. All. Done. Before. 5:30 p.m.  Or else? I’ve got a long weekend ahead of me.  And neither the husband nor the kiddo will appreciate me hovering over my laptop on a sunny-ish (I live in Chicago, remember?) Sunday afternoon. 

I’m not complaining here, just relaying life from my vantage point.  My friend who works full-time recently lamented about the coworker who actually thought she had time to stop and dawdle at Starbucks on the way back from work.  The horror! 

But the more I think about it, my whole “no time to waste time” motto may make a good case study for those women trying to get flexible work schedules.  I’m quite efficient in my shortened work week.  So much though, that a client even said to me today, “I don’t even realize it when you’re not there.” Imagine that!? Perhaps it’s that I have understanding clients (and colleagues), but more likely it’s that when I’m at work I’m there to work.  I feel as if I’m not there enough to justify a little break here and there.  I constantly aim to be busy as possible to keep on proving that part-time schedules do (cross my fingers) work in some scenarios.  For most moms who work a full work week, I’m pretty sure any free moment they have in their day is spent with their kids.  Or running errands (after work) for their kids. I don’t know many working moms with time to burn.  

Whatever the case, I can really only think of one scenario where lolly-gagging away time at work may make sense.  A great sale at Nordstrom.  Now that’s worth a couple extra hours of work on a weekend.

Tags: Lisa Belkin, working mom, flexible schedules, flexible work arrangements, wasting time at work, mom-friendly companies

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