Unless you’re a parent and you work from home, that is. How do you work at home with kids? They really need to rewrite the song to reflect that situation. It might go a little something like this:

(Clears throat)

There’s no way to work at home during the holidays

‘Cause no matter how far away you roam

Someone in your family will interrupt you, oh yes,

Making work a hell on earth at home sweet home.

(With deepest apologies to Perry Como.)

OK, so I’m a little pessimistic about the prospect of getting much work done at home over the winter holidays. Normally, my two boys attend a nearby elementary school, which gives me a good solid window of time each weekday where I can get some work done.

Then, when they arrive home, I can pull myself away from the computer to oversee homework assignments, drive them to piano lessons and choir rehearsal, or even take them to the park.

But when the third week of December rolls around, everything screeches to a halt.

My kids are home from school, and there’s all that pressure to have LOTS! OF! HOLIDAY! FUN! which you can then post on Instagram with a casual virtual shrug: “Oh, we’re just whipping up a few thousand Christmas cookies in our perfectly clean kitchen.” Or perhaps with a little cheerleadery “Hey, look how much awesome holiday fun we’re having!”

Every time I log onto Facebook, I see another picture of an acquaintance who’s dressed her kids in adorable holiday attire and whisked them off to decorate gingerbread houses or something equally precious.

And then I think, “Aw, man. We should have gone and decorated gingerbread houses instead of staying home so I could examine those hospital employment statistics while the boys watch ‘The Amazing World of Gumball’ again.”

Yes, the pressure comes from me. No one’s saying I have to round everyone up and insist on having all that holiday fun. I get that. I shouldn’t let myself feel guilty. But I can’t totally squelch it, either.

It’s daunting, to say the least.

But there are a few ways you can get something done during the holidays. I’ve got a few strategies up my sleeve, based on my eight years of freelancing from home. Consider them my holiday gift to you.

How to work at home with kids during the holidays

1. Work ahead

That last week before school gleefully sends your kids home for two or three weeks should be major crunch time. Crank out as much work as possible. And start…three, two, one…now!

2. Set office hours

Regular offices sometimes set special, shortened holiday hours. You can, too — after all, you’re the boss. Figure out when you’re most likely to get work done, and make those your office hours. Be as realistic as possible.

3. Sign your kids up for holiday day camps

Even one full day or two half days of kid-free time can help you make a big dent in your workload or word count. Check with your local parks and recreation department, dance studio, climbing gym or community center for possibilities. In my town, several private schools even offer Lego camps during the holidays.

Alternate strategy: if your kids attend day care and it’s open, send them!

4. Talk to your clients in advance about your holiday schedule

Maybe a client can move back a deadline to give you some wiggle room, or get some necessary files to you earlier than usual so you have more time to work on a project. Start this conversation at least a few weeks in advance of your schedule change.

5. Carve out time for holiday fun

Take time to have fun, and don’t feel guilty about it. Plan to attend that gingerbread house-decorating workshop in the morning. Then you’ll be free to work the rest of the day.

Honestly, your children can use the downtime while you’re working, too. So what if they just play Minecraft for a few hours? It’s their vacation!

6. Cue up beloved Christmas-themed movies

You can’t tell me that you didn’t look forward to watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or one of the countless reruns of A Christmas Story when you were a kid. Go ahead, let the kids enjoy a holiday classic while you work for an hour or two.

7. Share childcare with a friend

Do you have a buddy in the same boat? Trade off some childcare with her. You take Monday and let all the kids hang at your place, and then send them all over to her house on Tuesday.

8. Prioritize

Pick a holiday activity you truly love and can’t imagine missing. Then scrap the other ones you feel like you should do but don’t really care that much about.

Maybe you adore the Charles Dickens holiday festival but don’t really like the local Christmas parade, where you have to scramble for parking. When you’re working at home instead of shivering on the parade route, remind yourself you made a good decision.

9. Hire a sitter

I know, it will cut into your profits, but sometimes you just have to do it. Look for a sitter who can take the kids out of the house for a little while, even if it’s just to the playground a mile away.

Send them to the dollar theater for a few hours, or provide enough cash for lunch and video games at a pizza place.

10. Don’t take on projects you just can’t get done

This is easier said than done, I know. But if you know you are going to be knee-deep in kids, holiday activities and family obligations for the last half of December and the first part of January, it might be worth declaring a moratorium on all but the most essential work.

Doing this will also give you some breathing room in case a unexpected holiday-related disaster strikes.

• Related: 4 Ways to Manage Freelance Writing During the Holidays
• Related: The Freelance Writer’s Guide to the Holidays: 5 Simple Ways to Stay Sane

Writers with kids, chime in: How do you handle a packed house during the holidays?

Several seasoned veterans in the field shared their most successful strategies for sealing the deal. Trial and error was key, as it turned out. Sometimes they’d try one tactic, only to realize that it wasn’t working very well, so they’d tinker with it or even switch to something else. When that second effort worked better, they adopted it. And they shared their proven strategies with others in their corporations — spreading the wealth, in effect.

As writers and editors, most of us who have been doing this for a while have also developed some strategies that help us get the job done. We might use the corporate-speak phrase “best demonstrated practices,” but the concept is essentially the same.

The strategies below — BDPs — help these writers succeed, and they might help you, too. And who doesn’t want to succeed at what you love doing?

Get up from your desk to do your thinking

Staring at your computer monitor, with that tyrant of a blinking cursor, can be the death of great ideas. So it’s time to step away from the screen, folks. Often, getting a change of scenery is a great way to get your ideas flowing.

And you might not even have go that far away.

GiGi Rose, a writer based in Nashville, Tennessee, calls herself a shower thinker. “A shower helps get my ideas moving. No pressure to write, just to think,” she says.

Food writer and blogger Susan Williams is a shower thinker, too. “I always thought that was a bit odd, but it seems to be where ideas come best,” says Williams. “It’s like everything that’s a few layers deep rises to the surface there.”

Make technology your friend

Email can be a godsend. It can also pile up in your inbox and taunt you. (Just me? Nah, I didn’t think so.) Fortunately, you can make technology work for you, rather than against you.

Liza Graves, co-founder of the website Style Blueprint, found help for dealing with mountains of email in an email management program called SaneBox. The program pulls emails that don’t seem urgent or perhaps as relevant into a separate folder dubbed the @SaneLater folder. The emails that get shunted into the @SaneLater folder get summarized in a daily email digest that arrives each afternoon, so users can check to see if they missed anything.

“It’s not 100 percent, but it helps,” says Graves, adding that she likes not having lots of folders to check.

Jennifer Dunn, writer and chief of content for TaxJar, is a big fan of the web-based project management program Trello. Trello enables users to create boards full of lists and tasks, then customize the due dates, make checklists and upload relevant files, among other features. The program also sends notifications to users so they don’t miss anything.

Dunn estimates that she’s been using the program for about two years — ever since her company strongly encouraged her to give it a try. “I got thrown in feet first and fell in love,” she says. “I use it for everything.”

Other useful apps and programs that many writers have turned for help in using technology to help them manage their work include Remember the Milk (Me! What did I ever do before I found this app?), insight.ly and Freshbooks, which many freelancers swear by for invoicing.

Give yourself a break

There should be no guilt in taking a break, whether it’s for an hour-long exercise class at the gym or for an entire day of the week. The truth is, all work and no rest can burn out a writer.

You might even discover some new ideas that bubble to the surface when you’re not trying so hard.

When she was working as a “solopreneur,” JoAnn Takasaki, a writer in Houston, Texas, realized that she was working all the time, including nights and weekends, and decided to take action. “I put aside Wednesday for my personal day,” she says. That’s the day when she could head to the grocery store at 10 a.m. if she felt like it, or tackle other personal tasks.

Marketing professional Phyllis Nichols is a big fan of taking a walk. “Nothing helps me focus better,” she says. “I don’t listen to music. Sometimes, a podcast, but usually (just) quiet. My brain always gives me some great ideas when I introduce some quiet time and let it help.”

Rose also believes in the value of taking a break and often seeks out her favorite spot in her house, bringing along her coffee mug. “I believe in making yourself a sanctuary,” she says. “And I either talk to myself out loud or read what I have written out loud. My little quirks keep me focused and centered. And they help me enjoy what I am doing.”

You might also experiment with taking short breaks during your workday. A method called the Pomodoro Technique is helpful for writer and editor Rebecca Schiller. The technique calls for 25-minute writing sessions, with short breaks in between. “I make mine longer and take a 15 minute break,” she says.  

What works for you?

You might be able to adapt one of these best demonstrated practices to your own writing business. Or maybe you have developed a surefire winning strategy of our own, maybe a way that you strategically schedule your day or manage your income and expenses.

Please share your best BDPs with us!