"The two surest ways to get your kids' attention: closing the bathroom door or dialing the phone." (someecards.com) Pretty much sums it up!
If you work at home with kids, I saw this clever productivity tip from Deb Walker of Contemporary-VA in the post 37 Productivity Tips for Working From Anywhere (mashable.com). Do any of you do this?
Put together a box of toys, games, and books that your children are only allowed to use when you are on the phone. Make sure these ideas are saved for 'special' times (when you're on the phone, or can't give your child your full attention). Also, load up on popsicles. It always keeps them quiet for a few minutes for an important phone call.
Amy-
Thanks for all your blogging/productivity tips. I found your site about a week ago and it has been really handy as I've tried to move from a blogspot address to my own on WordPress. I had a question that you may be able to help with. On Genesis, how have you gotten it so that on your main posts page the preview is divided by the thin line? It looks very crisp, especially compared to the default box my meta data is in after the post.
Also, how did you get it to add Continue Reading to the bottom of your summary? Thanks so much!
Thin line: You'll need to edit your Post Meta CSS. I see you're using Prose. Go to your Dashboard –> Genesis –> Design Settings –> Post Meta. Change your background to transparent or #ffffff (which is white).
To add a border, you'll need to go into your stylesheet (Dashboard –> Appearance –> Editor –> stylesheet). You must be VERY careful here. Backup first! Find .post-meta. You'll see a list of attributes between brackets, { and }. Add this one to the list: "border-top: 1px solid #cccccc" (or whatever color you want it to be)–no quotes. Make sure you don't erase anything or tweak the brackets. Save.
Changing the read more link requires editing your functions.php file. Check the resources page or ask in the forums for the exact code.
Hope that helps!
When my older children were little we had a "special box" that the younger ones would bring out when I needed to do focused work with my older ones for school. It had things they could do by themselves – similar to the busy bag ideas that have been floating around the web.
Luckily, my kids are grown up enough (7 and 12) so that all I need to do is let them borrow a very thin box just a little smaller than the iPad, and that's my wife's mini iPad, whenever I need a couple of hours of uninterrupted work. My 7 year old princess however still needs a popsicle sometimes to extend her temporary independence.