Working from home – it sounds so lovely doesn’t it. Picture the scene and you can imagine drinking coffee on the sofa, laptop balanced on your knee, a clean house because ‘you’ve been in all day’. You can enjoy taking the children to school without the manic rush as you can do the breakfast dishes when you get back. A 2.30 alarm rings reminding you to pick up your precious cargo whilst you all drink hot chocolate and talk about your day. Oh and somewhere in there you completed your days work.
Bliss.
The reality is half done jobs, rushing about like a possessed thing and frantically running around the house just before 6.30 when the husband gets back throwing things in cupboards in an attempt to tidy up.
The dream
I bought lovely wrapping this year as obviously I was going to have time to carefully wrap beautifully chosen presents with bows. I was going to learn the art of wow, I was going to use pinterest and get all creative. Instead I have presents rammed in all the usual hiding places and the wrapping paper is grinning at me from the corner reminding me that I have not yet got started on wrapping let alone prettying it up!
The reality
I have one week left, one week to the school bell chimes and I have four more bodies in the house wanting to be entertained. I have a week to finish my commissions, to clear my to do list and appear that I have successfully prepared for Christmas.
The dream
A Christmas table laden with turkey and tinsel. Crackers that have been handmade, mince pies baked fresh with little bits of cut out pastry on top that mimics holly leaves.
The reality
We are overlooking the fact that I haven’t even ordered a Turkey yet – it could well be beans on toast come the 25th but I have prosecco, all the prosecco so I have got something right!
The dream
The tree is beautifully decorated with all the craft activities we have done after school since Advent started.
The reality
It is up, that is an achievement.
The dream
All my presents were delivered at the start of December and are now nestled under their trees, with everyone gasping at my amazing skills.
The reality
At the top of my today list is to send the presents to those who live away, I realise that I am cutting it fine and this needs to be a priority – when I can remember where those particular presents have been put I can sort it out. However I don’t have time to be standing in post office queues which is where My Parcel Delivery come in. They are going to save my sanity because they do all the hard work. They will find me the cheapest options for posting and have made it easier with courier services to save me time.
Next year I am going to follow their advice and start getting organised sooner and if anyone suggests that I have plenty of time because I work freelance and work from home then they are off my Christmas card list forever.
1. Don’t leave it until last minute
This time of year is extremely busy for parcel sending and this can lead to delays with delivery networks, especially around pre-Christmas sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So your parcel may take a little longer than normal to be delivered.
If you want to make sure your Christmas presents arrive in time, get them sent off as early as you can – even if it means the receiver is tempted to have a sneaky look at their gift before Christmas!
If you’re a last-minute shopper by nature be sure to look out for information from the courier companies and the Post Office on their last delivery dates for Christmas.
2. Avoid the post office queues
You can avoid queuing up at the Post Office by booking a courier who will collect from your address, or using an alternative local drop-off point. Couriers like Hermes, UPS and Collect+ have local drop-off points all across the UK, meaning you can drop your parcel off with them and skip the Post Office queues.
Another great reason to use a courier service or booking through a parcel comparison website like My Parcel Delivery is the savings you can make. Take a look at how much you can save with My Parcel Delivery compared to Royal Mail parcel prices.
3. Pick suitable items for sending
If you’re still choosing which gifts to send, try and pick gifts that will travel well and are easy to package. A number of items aren’t allowed to be sent via courier or through the post so make sure you don’t buy these items to send.
If an item from restricted or prohibited list is the gift you really want to give, then we suggest ordering it directly from the retailer and having it delivered directly to the receiver.
8 Responses
As a mama who works from home, i can totally relate to everything you’re saying here. We always have the best intentions of getting things done but the reality is somewhat different. It’s so hard to strike the right balance between it all and there’s just never enough hours in the day i find! Good luck with the Christmas wrapping and dinner! xx
I also work from home and I can totally sympathise how hard it can be to get everything done. Time just runs away from you and although I can never work out just where my time goes I can never seem to get things done! Luckily I have wrapped the presents that I’ve already bought but they’re nothing fancy, no bows for sure!
The reality is so different to the dream whether work from home or not both are hard I sometimes work from home and still struggle . I am lucky this year I don’t have to post anything as I am meeting all the people on my Christmas list next week
This is so the situation in our house. The tree is up here too, but I’m not sharing any pics on instagram! The perception of working from home is that you can do a job and look after everything else too I find
I really enjoyed reading this as it makes me feel a little more normal! I cannot even leave my house at the moment as I am waiting for parcels to arrive, one parcel has even gone missing from the royal mail sorting office and I don’t know who it has come from and they don’t know who tried to deliver it…Nightmare!
I am still trying to plan what to buy my eldest son, but as you say at least my trees up, no lights outside but I have bought them at least.
Working from home is the hardest place to work from in my opinion as when you are there someone always needs you and I cannot rest if jobs need doing and with boys they always seem to need doing.
I was poorly all last week and still not 100%. I started crying like a baby with a pile of washing in my arms saying ” I am too busy to get poorly”
We will get though I am sure, Merry Christmas
I certainly learnt about last minute stuff. I have my present bought and wrapped 3 weeks ago. Meant I have something less to worry about and I could concentrate on other things.
My idea of being organised is turning into being laidback, and knowing it’ll get done. I’m getting there – only the in laws, something else for the OH and exchanging some slippers for my brother, then wrapping everything, and finalising my food order (whihc even though it’s not coming til 23rd, needs to be ordered by 13th! Nuts
Ha ha this rings a bell! I love the concept of working from home, and as I cut on the commute, I am less stressed and feel much more perky come evening time but I sure as he’ll don’t have time to clean up the house, sometimes even to make a lunch for myself!