For many parents, working full-time is a necessity. However, finding the time and energy to work full-time and parent full-time can be almost impossible if you’re not intentional about how you do things. Luckily, there are ways that you can make changes in your life to help ensure that you’re not completely exhausted and overwhelmed all of the time.
To help you in figuring this out, here are three tips for working while being a full-time parent.
Learn To Say “No” To Things
When you don’t have a lot of time to waste in your life, you need to set clear boundaries around your time so that you’re not overextending yourself in areas where you can’t afford to. So while it can be hard to let some things go, to protect yourself and your family, you need to learn how to say “no” to certain things that get presented in your life.
If accepting an invitation to something or committing to something is going to put too much stress on you or your family, even if you think it could be something fun or that you and your family would enjoy, the peace that it takes away from you and the added stress just might not be worth it. So before you feel pressured to say “yes” to everything, really think about how this thing will impact the lives of everyone in your family.
Find Ways To Save Time
With time being a finite resource, it’s wise to find ways that you can maximize your time and not waste time on things that are unnecessary.
To do this, you may want to learn how to be as efficient as possible with certain things in life. For example, you might need to get up a little early or stay up a little later taking care of things for your family or your work responsibilities. You may also want to do things like meal prep for the week all at the same time, offload more chores onto your partner or kids, and make simple routines so mindless tasks can be done quickly and easily.
Commit To What You’re Doing When You’re Doing It
Balancing your work and personal life can be hard for anyone. But when you’re a parent, the guilt can be even more difficult to manage.
Something you can do to ease this off of you is to commit to what you’re doing with your time when you’re doing it. If professionally you’re going to be buying a new business and needing to figure out the process of valuation and so forth, give yourself permission to do this without feeling guilty that you’re not with your kids at this exact moment. And when you’re able to spend time with your kids and your family, let work come off of your plate so that you can give more of your attention to the present moment.
If you’re having a hard time with working and parenting, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you streamline some things.
