Time limitation
Each one of us has 24 hours a day to carry out the activities of life including doing things we truly enjoy and attending to our family responsibilities. For sure 24 hours is not enough to carry too many activities without prioritizing your activities. You need to carry out those activities which enable you to achieve your goals in life.
Balancing Act
Achieving balance between work and the other activities is an ongoing process. It is a personal decision how one combines their career, family, friends and self into an integrated whole. The key is to be creative and innovative as you approach the challenges of balancing the responsibilities and joys of your multiple roles. It is important to note the same skills and strategies you use at work such as planning, organizing, communicating, setting limits and delegating can be used effectively on the home-front for achieving a satisfying, fulfilling and well-balanced life both personally and professionally. To achieve a proper balance between work and family one needs to consider the following;
Planning and prioritizing
The key is to get organized and plan the activities for a day, a month and a year. Since we cannot afford to carry out all activities, we have to come up with a priority list. Remember your family matters should not be an inconvenience to your boss, and business at large and you have to learn to be organized. Get into the habit of planning the activities of each day in advance. Even if you feel that both your work and family are important, you have to decide what takes precedence when both areas of your life need nurturing at one time, thus creating a conflict. You should not have to neglect one to take care of the other, so determine which one is the most pressing at the time.
Create and Organize a Family Calendar
Figure out your family’s priorities incorporate them in calendar. A calendar may include dates when bills are due, children related activities, family events, extracurricular activities, birthdays, and more. It is also advisable to assign the responsibility for maintaining the family calendar to one member of the family.
Develop time-management skills
If you organize yourself well, there should be no reason why you cannot give time to your family. Time management skills also involve learning how to end your day at work and begin your day at home. This may also mean learning how to say “no” when a work colleague asks you to help on a project that you just cannot fit into your schedule.
Create Time for Yourself
Being a good parent, partner and professional means being good to yourself first. Use your mind to make some positive affirmations for yourself. Taking some time off for yourself will not only benefit you, but it will benefit your work and family tremendously, as well! You need to review your mission for existence on regular basis.
Partner with your partner
Be supportive and find ways you and your partner can use to be more effective both at home and at work which will increase both your happiness levels and build rather than put strain on your relationship.
Find Reliable Child Care
Take your time to identify a house maid to look after the children. You have to leave the children in the capable hands of someone you have confidence in. If you’re feeling uncomfortable about working or about leaving your children do not show it otherwise your children will pick right up on it. Build relationship with your children teachers and other service providers by regularly communicating with them.
Take advantage of benefits offered by your employer
Some employers offer benefits such as flexi time, short or compressed work weeks, working from home and working environment to promote productive and happy workforce.
Team spirit
Build relationship with people who have like life challenges in order to share ideas. Find out if there are ways you can pool or swap resources for example to pick up your child from school when you have an urgent need to stay late at work? You can set up a system even if it is just swapping mobile numbers with other parents in your child’s class that will provide some back up for each of you in times when it is needed?
Add Value agenda
There are a lot of things we waste time on in life. It is advisable you only keep items on your agenda which add value to you.
Positive mindset
In order to succeed in your balancing act you have to surround yourself with positive minded people. These people have a positive approach to life challenges hence they do not have challenges that cannot be solved. These people will give you some useful tips which you can use to solve your life challenges.
Live closer to work
Look for accommodation near your work place, hospitals and schools as well as markets and also outsource some of the tasks you can’t handle well in order to have valuable time for work and family.
In conclusion
Balancing work and family requires you to be flexible and willing to assume responsibility for any of the tasks that need to get done at any time. Never get too comfortable, because as soon as you seem to get things under control, they change! Remember, there is no single formula for balancing work and family it is a personal decision how one combines spouse, children and career.
Author
Kasemiire Agnes Akiiki
Kasemiire25@gmail.com
