The Freelance Mum: A flexible career guide for better work-life balance. Annie Ridout

kids should see their mothers succeed; this shows them that women can be loving but also intelligent and super motivated. A happy mum = a happy family.’ It’s for this reason that she advocates occasional screen-time, when necessary. ‘It’s OK to stick your kids in front of a screen for a little while if you need to finish an email or a write-up. We all do this. It’s fine.’

      Mère Soeur founder Carrie Anne Roberts says: ‘The hardest thing about juggling work as a single mum is, surprise surprise, finding the time to actually work. If I’m not working I feel like I should be and if I am working I feel like I’m not being as present as I could be for River. There is a constant pressure to excel as a parent and in my career but the balance is difficult to achieve. The one thing that makes it all easier is the fact that I can work to my own schedule and be around for River a lot more than I would be if I’d gone back to work 9–5. As difficult as the juggle can be, I’m beyond grateful for the time I have with him and the flexibility I have from this kind of work.’

      Dr Jessamy Hibberd – clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker and author – says: ‘I split my week – three long days working (with some drop-offs/pick-ups with the kids) and then Thursday–Sunday with my family. I do work when they’re asleep when needed, but I don’t check emails/work when I’m with them. I think I find it easier to do one thing at a time. When I’m with the kids I’m with the kids. When I’m at my clinic, I’m seeing people, and when I have my non-clinic time I focus on a project.’

      Sarah Turner – founder of The Unmumsy Mum blog, author of two Sunday Times bestselling books and freelance journalist – says that her biggest challenge is living with the constant fear that she’s ‘on call’ for both work and parenting. ‘I never feel like I am doing either job particularly well, as I have a terrible habit of checking work emails when I’m with the kids and checking that the kids are all right when I’m supposed to be working. A big part of this problem stems from the fact that I don’t have a separate office or workspace at home and so very often can still hear the kids when I’m writing from our bedroom (and they know I’m there, so often potter in and disturb me!).

      ‘At the moment, my husband is taking shared parental leave after the birth of our third baby and so is not working, which means I am free to do more work, but now I have to contend with everyone being at home pretty much all the time. I have been trying to escape to the local library or co-working spaces to allow for better concentration but that presents its own problems, such as when I need to dial in to a Skype meeting or discuss a confidential project I don’t really want to shout about across the library café. I sometimes miss the days of going out to work in the morning, shutting the door behind me and then returning in the evening ready to be “Mum” and not “Mum who’s here all the time but always working”. The reality is that my new work life is so intertwined with my home life that there can never be a clean break or distinction between the two. In actual fact, it’s often our “downtime” that provides the richest material for me to write about and I can’t seem to stop my mind from thinking, “I should blog this!”’

      If you’re keen to close the laptop at some point and become ‘mum’ again, here are some tricks for navigating the switch from mum to work mode and back …

      – Make yourself a cup of tea or a glass of ice-cold water. Focus on it while you drink. This signals the end of working and back to being a mum. Or the reverse.

      – Clementine app has a ‘reset’ recording, which is just five minutes long, that helps you to leave old thoughts behind and move into a new part of your day.

      – Allocate the last 10 minutes of working or childcare to transition. So if you’re at your desk, spend 10 minutes preparing to be ‘mum’ again: get a bottle ready for the baby, go to the loo. If you’ve been mum, allow yourself 10 minutes to get into work mode once your child has gone for her nap or to nursery, e.g. read the news on your phone. But don’t get sucked into social media.

      – When you’ve finished work, leave your phone at your desk. This prevents the temptation to check emails ‘just once more’ while your child drinks her milk or whatever.

      – Do five minutes of stretching. If you’ve been sat at a desk, this will pump energy back into your body, and if you’ve been with your child, it’ll help you to focus on your next task: work.

      Most of us are guilty of flicking through social apps on our phones while looking after our kids. If you’re starting to feel guilty about this, you could always try one of the apps for creating barriers between being online and offline. For instance, Moment, which tracks all your online time and updates you at the end of the day. Most of us spend far too much time on social, but having it quantified might just be scary enough to enforce some habit changes. It certainly has for me. At times like the nursery pick-up, I used to push the buggy with one hand and scroll with the other. Now I’m trying to leave it in my pocket and just walk. And see. And think. (And respond when my son sticks his hand out for yet another breadstick.)

      Courtney Adamo, co-founder of Babyccino Kids – an international lifestyle website for modern mums – and a mum of five, has discovered the importance of separating family life and work life. ‘While we (women/mums) are good at multi-tasking and can totally cook dinner, answer emails and hold a baby all at the same time,’ she says, ‘I have learned from experience that I work better and feel happier (both in general and about the work I’m doing) when I focus on one task at a time and give it my full attention. Especially the part about being a mum. If I am distracted with my kids, they can totally feel it and everything spirals from there in a negative way.’

       Where to work from?

      I’ve always been happy spending time alone, so for me it works to set myself up on the end of my dining-room table and type away with a view of the garden. Also, I found this easier to fit around my children’s naps. That said, there were a few months when my son wanted to sleep at the exact same time I had to drop my daughter at nursery, so I’d find myself waving goodbye to her then reclining the buggy and doing some vigorous jiggling until he dropped off. I’d park up by a bench – anywhere – and work on my phone: emails, writing, editing. It wasn’t ideal – mostly because there was no toilet. Or coffee. But going into a cafe was going to wake him from his sleep, so in order to best utilise this time, a bench it was.

      I now work from home or my local coffee shop, which has fast and free wifi, excellent coffee and nice cheese toasties for lunch. I rack up a bill of around £12, which isn’t much considering on my work days I might be there from 9.30 a.m. until 3 p.m. Others prefer to use the local library, a shared workspace – some even come with a crèche (there’s a list of these at the end of the book) – or you might be able to make use of the crèche at your gym – half an hour on the running machine, followed by an hour and a half of work.

      Something I’ve recently started doing is borrowing a friend’s house to work in. She and her boyfriend are out during the day, Monday–Friday, and they have a cat who likes company. It means I don’t have to commando-crawl out of the kitchen when my son comes home from the Toy Library with his childminder – if he sees me, he doesn’t want to be parted again – but I also don’t have to pay for coffee. This exchange could work well if you have a friend whose dog needs walking. Or perhaps you could spend your last hour cooking dinner for their return? Worth it, for a free workspace.

      Lucy Mangan – Stylist columnist, Guardian writer, author – says that her greatest challenge as a freelancer is feeling she’s doing neither work nor motherhood properly. ‘I’d prefer to be doing one thing, as well as I can,’ she says. So attempting to work from home while her seven-year-old son is there can create tension. ‘Multitasking is not my thing,’ she says, ‘especially when I’m doing creative writing. I need long, uninterrupted stretches of time. And a quiet space. But as your child gets older, they become more demanding. They want to spend time with you. Of course they do. But