Are you a parent who has to manage both work and family life? If so, you may wonder how other parents manage their careers while taking care of their family’s needs without going insane.
There are many articles and stories of people sharing their stories and tips on how they do it. Some note that their employers have assisted them in achieving the perfect work-life balance as working parents. Others say it’s a combination of their employer’s family-friendly policies and a shift in their daily strategy. A few provide other tips that work for their situation.
If you want to try it out for yourself, here are some great tips you can follow to achieve the right balance between parenthood and your career:
Use Your Mornings Right
Whether you have many tasks ahead and your home chores to do, it is best to take advantage of the early mornings to get a head start. You can do your chores in the early morning, like doing the laundry, taking the dogs for a walk and preparing everyone’s breakfast. Once you finish these tasks, you can focus on your work preparations, get to work on time and focus on your tasks. You also won’t need to worry about these home chores while at work and rush your job because you already completed them before going to work.
Think Like You Are Doing A Project
You can also view your schedule as a project and create a timeline for getting things done. One way to do this is by having a whiteboard at home, preferably in your dining area, and sectioning it into three or four columns: to do, in progress, complete, and particular tasks. You can ask your family to write their tasks and sort them out on the board, inspiring them to complete them without additional prompting.
You can also apply the same mindset when preparing pack lunches for the children or completing particular tasks. Ensure you have some leeway to account for emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances.
Use AI
Do you want to give your family an extra incentive to get moving in the mornings? Why not use AI to help you out? For instance, you can use tools like Siri or Alexa to activate the alarm and add a note about what the family needs to do for that specific day. You can also use your phone’s alarm to help you wake up on time and the reminders app to give you an idea of your daily tasks. These tools can be particularly useful for setting reminders for important tasks or appointments, or for coordinating schedules with your family members.
Need help in sorting these tasks and schedules out? There are apps with AI wizards that will guide you through each step so you can schedule your tasks easily and remind you when these tasks are due. This can bring a sense of relief and peace of mind, knowing that you have a reliable system to keep you on track.
Always Be On Schedule
Schedules are there for a reason, and you must follow them to the letter to achieve the right balance between work and parenting. If you have an office schedule, stick by it and stay within the schedule. This adherence to a plan can give you a sense of control and empowerment, helping you to manage your time effectively and reduce feelings of being overwhelmed.
If you need to do overtime, try doing it only for an hour or so. If not, schedule your tasks in advance so you don’t have to rush when you get back home. You can also speak to your spouse to take over your functions if you need to take an overtime shift and vice versa. Meanwhile, if your job requires you to take different shifts, coordinate with your spouse so you can identify which tasks you can take based on your schedule.
Remember that you should make up to your family if you cannot keep to your schedule!
Reach Out To Your Team
Your team can also help you achieve a work-life balance and stay flexible to balance your work and parenting responsibilities. Take some time to speak to them before you start working for the day and see what tasks everyone has. You can also take note of the events everyone has on schedule or when they plan to take a short leave. Once you know these details, you can easily delegate tasks and get stuff done faster.
For example, you can coordinate with your team to cover for each other during personal emergencies or to distribute workload during busy periods, ensuring that everyone can maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Use The Benefits
Using your employer’s available benefits to help you with your parenting is best. Many companies nowadays are changing policies to help parents, such as paternity and maternity leaves, on-site daycare, flexible or remote work, etc. See what is available for your needs and request them from your management. You should also coordinate with your management if they have alternatives in case the ready options don’t work for your situation or if there is an emergency.
If your company does not offer benefits for parents, why not lead the effort and propose benefits that the parents in the team will need? Your company may listen to you if you prove it will benefit everyone. You can get the rest of the team involved so they can share their ideas about these benefits.
Whether you are a single parent or a married couple, balancing parenthood with work will be very tricky. You will need to be careful about how you plan your day to succeed in balancing the two and use all the support available. Use the tips above to guide you in adjusting your strategy to balance the two together based on your situation. It may take a while before these strategies make an impact. But once you find the perfect balance, parenting and work will be easy.
For work-life balance with parenting, perhaps the freelancing route is a career you can consider. Check out my book on how I can help you to make it happen:
