Segaric advised that I stop the sneaking around and come clean with my boss: let him know that I have to relieve my babysitter but that I believe I’m meeting my job demands, and ask if he agrees. She said I should reassure him that he can count on me, and if necessary, I should offer to compensate by making myself available in other ways—maybe by going into work a half hour earlier, being reachable at home after hours or forgoing an hour’s lunch break. Or I could set up a weekly check-in meeting with him, an informal ten minutes during which I ask him for feedback and update him on my work. I might also do the same with other colleagues in my department. “It’s better to start these conversations yourself,” Segaric says, “to create a situation where you’re seen as a mature adult.”

Another great strategy for managing perceptions is to be realistic about how long things take and not to overpromise, a common mistake new moms make as they struggle to feel relevant and competent after maternity leave. Segaric suggests doubling your estimate of the time a project will take to complete. If your boss asks when you can have something done and you’re tempted to say Tuesday, tell him Thursday instead and then finish by Wednesday. In the end, you deliver early but haven’t overextended yourself. “It’s far better to underpromise and overdeliver than to overpromise and underdeliver,” says Segaric. I recall that in the weeks before my baby was due, I suggested to my boss that I could do some work during maternity leave. Little did I know how laughable that was. Fortunately, my boss, a father, told me not to worry about it and that I’d probably have my hands full with the baby. Later I saw how my urge to offer something unrealistic was really about guilt. In fact, I was entitled to a work-free maternity leave, and my boss was just happy that I was planning to come back afterward.

Segaric also had a few tips for managing the inevitable time crunch more effectively. Most important—and counterintuitive—is to stop multitasking. When you’re working on something that requires analysis or thought, you’re not as efficient if you’re doing many things at once. Instead of focusing on to-do’s, spend some time at the beginning of the day—perhaps on the subway ride in—making a list of priorities. Then post it in your office. The tricky part is not to let yourself get sidetracked; if your attention is pulled away, look at the list and see if what you’re being asked to do falls under one of the priority items (finishing that quarterly update memo, for example). If it does, great. Otherwise, schedule it on your calendar for later.

In the same vein, avoid the e-mail suck. Though you may have to check on your messages regularly, choose one or two times a day to reply to them (say, late morning and late afternoon). If possible, you might even use your out-of-office reply feature to post a message saying that you’re in the office and will respond to e-mails at 4pm.

Finally, it’s not a bad idea to remind yourself that your boss and all of your coworkers are busy, too, and more than likely aren’t worrying so much about what you’re doing or when you’re leaving. Projecting your anxiety onto them is usually wasted energy, and God knows we new moms don’t have much of that to spare. (Annemarie Segaric, one-hour phone consultation $150; 212-724-5882, segaric.com).

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