4. The Yes Basket: A Simple Hack for Working from Home with Kids

Ever feel like you can’t get through an email without hearing “Mom, can I…?” for the tenth time?  Or maybe your toddler is raiding the kitchen while you’re trying to focus on a client call.  

Can you relate?  

Are you constantly pulled between your work and keeping the kids entertained—without resorting to endless screen time?  

We’ve all been there. The struggle to stay productive while making sure the little ones are happy is real, but today, I’ve got a game-changing solution for you!  

In this episode, I’m sharing the magic of the Yes Basket—a simple tool that can help you work from home with fewer interruptions and happier kids.  

Here’s what you’ll learn:  

• What a Yes Basket is and how to create one with things you already have.  
• Why it works to keep kids entertained without constant supervision.  
• How to customize it for different ages and interests to keep it fresh and fun.  

Grab your coffee, get inspired, and let’s dive into the chaos—caffeinated, of course!  

Cheers! Thank you for joining us for another episode. Have a chaotic moment, question, or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message or leave a review! If you loved this episode, share it with a friend who thrives in beautiful chaos too. 

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on Caffeinated Chaos are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, beliefs, or positions of Whitney Aguon or Aguon Studios LLC. The content shared by guests is for informational and entertainment purposes only. We encourage listeners to do their own research and form their own opinions.

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Hello and welcome back to Caffeinated Chaos. I am so glad that you guys are all joining me because we have a good one today. It's a little bit of a hack so get ready and let's dive on in. My Morning routine. Oh my gosh, my morning routine on most days is I wake up roughly around 7. 30 and I have a few minutes to myself just lying in bed catching up on texts from family or friends because I work remotely some days from home, starting at 8. 30. So I'm typing my emails, and I'm in the zone, and then all of a sudden, you My toddler wakes up and she wakes up looking like Anna waking up on Coronation Day. Any frozen people out there? Anna wakes up and she is like, barely awake, actually, and bedhead, super messy, and she's just like repeating what they're saying. They're trying to wake her up and when she finally realizes what day it is, she jumps out of bed and starts singing. That's how it goes in the movie. Well, my toddler is basically the same. She will wake up. Bedhead, look around, take a second to fully gain consciousness, and then says the sun's up and comes running out like a tornado, and wants toys, wants food, wants everything, and is just ready to run outside and go if she could. I mean, don't you wish we could all start the day as quickly as a toddler can without coffee? So, I've come up with this thing called the Yes Basket. It was kind of like, here's, a box full of stuff. Go play. And, there's nothing wrong with that. It's kind of the same concept of Yes Day. If you don't know what Yes Day is, they also have a movie about it. It's, um, who's in it, who's in it? Jenna Ortega, and I think Jennifer Gardner plays her mom. Basically, they are a family, and The parents with some ground rules and guidelines, let the kids basically pick the activities of the day. And whenever they ask a question or whatever, the parents have to say yes, as long as it falls within the realm of appropriate in the guidelines. So, the basket is a simple yet effective way to That, one, helps me to remain focused in the work that I'm doing, but also allows my child to, you know, independently play with their stuff. You might be asking like, okay, what is a yes basket? Honestly, the basket that I use for the yes basket was given to me by my husband and my daughter. Two Halloweens ago where they did a boo basket. It's one of those, like, just baskets they got from Target. And now it's filled with toys. There's crayons and little coloring books. I've printed out stickers for her. So I threw stickers in there, whenever I had extras. Because it's just a bunch of small things that will allow My daughter to go through them and play with them while I knock out whatever task that I'm working on, whether that's replying to emails or, transcribing the podcast, that kind of thing. So, it's really great because she is really happy. She thinks they're brand new toys, even though, you know, most of them are just toys that I see her play with a lot. Then she lost interest, but like once in a while when she finds them, she'll play with it for like the whole day, and then she'll lose interest. We all know how kids are, out of sight, out of mind, so that basically I took that concept and I put them all into a basket along with fresh crayons and all that kind of stuff and I hid the basket away so that when, she's getting itch for a new toy or she want something more simulating or more basically something that's quote unquote new even though it's not new to play with, then out comes the Yes Basket. Okay, let's get into how you can set up a Yes Basket for yourself. So what I did is I took toys and little things, that she's into or was into and put them in the basket when she lost interest then once they see it again, boom, favorite toy. But also inside the basket, you can put in some snacks. I do crackers. We do like little Ritz crackers, that kind of stuff, but you want to try, make sure it's not mess free. The last thing you want to do is give your kid a bunch of stuff and then come back and it's a disaster. Like, I would never put paints in the basket. I would not put anything that's sticky or messy. I mean, we don't even do slime in our house, so I would not recommend putting anything that could cause a bigger mess because you don't want to come back and have to clean up a mess now. But activity books, those kind of things. Then they'll play with them and when they're doing that and I let them go beyond the time that I'm working on a task and then I'll go around and find other things that she's not really playing with but she still likes and then those go into the yes basket. So it's nice rotation to keep things fresh And it's also a nice way to control the amount of toys and items that are just scattered around your house is that So it keeps a nice rotation and it keeps things fresh and new so one there's not that so much around your house and two You don't actually have to keep buying new toys. You just keep reintroducing them. I really enjoy this and I hope that this quick little episode can give you a little bit of takeaway so we have, you know, the Yes Basket will help you out. and your child. One, it empowers them to make choices because they can pick anything from within the basket to play with and do it independently. It's going to help you because you're going to have less interruptions because they're so invested in all those quote unquote new things that they can play with today. There are just some times where you have to use it because you're like i'm on a deadline and this needs to be done In like an hour so yes Just take this basket, go play with whatever you want to play with it for the next hour, and mommy will be right there, you know? So, I hope that this was helpful. It was a nice little quick little hack. But if you make your own yes basket, we love to hear like what you put into it. If it's working for you, Send us a picture of it, share it on Instagram, you can tag us at caffeinatedchaospodcast on Instagram. And we would just love to see what you guys are putting in yours. We will definitely be posting one of our Yes Basket. And I really hope that you enjoy this episode. I really appreciate you all being here and listening to me. I really hope that one, you enjoyed it. Two, that you are able to take something away from this. And that three, it actually helps you in your business. That is my goal. I want to help all of you, with these little fun tips and hacks. And, I hope that you share this with your fellow entrepreneurs and parents. It doesn't necessarily have to be to distract your child while you're working on business. It could just be, hey, a parent just needs a couple minutes to read a few pages in their favorite book. And if it helps a parent, you know, get through a couple pages, because I know how hard that can be, then I feel very accomplished. So, Please share it with your fellow parents and entrepreneurs. Share it with your besties. If you feel so inspired, please leave us a review. We would love to hear from you. And it does great things for our podcast. And yeah, make sure you're following us on all your streaming platforms. And until the next one, I'll see you later. Stay caffeinated, everyone.