COVID-19: 9 tips for wedding professionals on how to work remotely with children

In this unprecedented and ever-evolving situation, one thing we can likely count on is that we’ll all be working from home for the weeks ahead. While this is a big change for everyone in our industry, having the added responsibility of looking after children will no doubt bring further challenges (and frustration).

Bridebook have put together 9 top tips for everyone working remotely with children. Use them to help you navigate the time ahead and find your new normal together as a family.

1. Set Up Your Work Space

Create a designated space for your work and another for your children’s school work, and set boundaries. This will not only enable you to keep better organised and free of distractions, but will mentally help you to get into the zone when you need to and step out of it at the end of the day. If you’re able to designate a room, then a closed door indicating focus time could make a real difference to interruptions.

2. Start Early

If you can, wake up an hour or two before your little ones are out of bed and use this time to set yourself up for the day. Plan, prioritise your tasks and set clear goals each morning. Anything you can get done first thing will give you the time to give them your undivided attention later on with a little less pressure.

3. Routine as Usual

Even with school closed, keep the routine where possible. If you don’t have a lesson plan from teachers then build your own. There are endless resources online to support – why not try a 30 day free trial of homeschoolPlanet – or get creative, draw up a chart and stick it to the fridge. Involve your children in this process so they feel like part of the plan – collaboration is key. With a structure in place, align your work around theirs – this will allow you to block out and allocate your time effectively and ultimately be more productive.

4. Include Frequent Breaks

Include short breaks between each task in the home school schedule, and where possible join in with these. Dividing time up this way will be great for productivity for both you and your children and will enable you to regularly engage throughout the day between periods of focus.

5. Get Active

Whether outside or indoors, make it a priority to get some movement in at least once every day. Essential to both physical and mental wellbeing, this will make a huge difference to the whole family and hopefully stop energy levels from getting out of control. Why not try PE with Joe Wicks on Youtube – people are loving it!

6. Extracurricular Activities

As with keeping to the usual routine as much as possible, if your children can carry on with any other regular activities, such as music lessons or ballet classes, check online to see if these are being offered. If not, why not create your own – get them more involved in cooking dinner or run a zero-effort art class with the help of paint by numbers.

7. Sharing is Caring

If you have someone to share the responsibilities with then make the most of that. Rotating between time with each partner, alone time and family time all together will help you break the day into blocks and allocate work time accordingly.

8. Be Flexible

In this challenging and uncertain time, perhaps most important is to stay open-minded. Be flexible with your children and with yourself – some things may have to slip, and that’s ok. This is about finding the new normal all together.

9. Connect with Other Parents

Being connected with others in the same situation can be hugely valuable and comforting. Perhaps someone can suggest a great online lesson plan or a fun breaktime activity, or maybe you have a top tip to share? The UK Wedding Venues Slack group, which you can join here, is a great starting point if you want to reach out and find others in the same boat.

We hope that these 9 top tips will help you and your families manage these challenging times. For more advice on remote working, have a read of our top productivity hacks here. As ever, Bridebook is here to support you to the very best of our abilities, so do reach out if you want to chat to a member of the team. The UK Wedding Venues Slack group is a hugely valuable source support with over 700 members, which you can join here. We will get through this, together.