Running a household and having a career can be tough! Starting your morning running around after children to get them all prepared for their day, then rushing into your workplace to take care of clients and your workload, to then pick up children again and get them to their various after school activities. Balancing work and home life, and all the little things that come with it, has got to be the most challenging thing in many working parents' lives. This blog is about taking care of yourself so that you can continue to juggle numerous tasks all while remembering that your child has mufti day tomorrow.
At Trinity we are lucky enough to have a hybrid work set up where parents are given the freedom to work around some of their family commitments and we even have a children's room set up to bring the minis into the office and reduce the need for child care. From a business perspective, providing these kinds of opportunities in the workplace is a great way to help your staff to feel more balanced and secure. This more modern way of working has become more popular post Covid however it does mean that as an employee you may start to have blurred lines between work and family time and below we will run through ideas to set some boundaries between the two:
Time management is a big factor when trying to balance hundreds of tasks at once. Make a list the night before for everything you need to tackle the following day. Having things ready for the children, like ready made lunch boxes and clothes set out can also be a great help. Blocking out time for all the tasks you need to get completed can be a great tool and gives you a realistic timeframe of how long each task should take. Try to only tackle one task at a time throughout the day, otherwise, if you are anything like me, you will end up frazzled and won’t have completed a single thing. Planning is paramount to time management.
Delegating is another tool which can be used to manage your time more effectively, your family are likely more than capable of helping around the house more and you may have colleagues whose work loads aren’t as full as yours that week. Lightening the load where possible can help you feel less overwhelmed and stressed.
Exercise is a proven stress, anxiety and depression reliever. However, when we are busy, exercising is quite often the first thing to go from our calendar. It's important to recognise that when you are less anxious or stressed then you will have better quality work and you will be happier in the moment with your family. Exercising is really a crucial element which is often overlooked.
Another thing to remember, as hard as it may be, is that you need time too. You cannot fill other people's cups, if your cup is empty. Quite often when you are the parent splitting your time between work and family duties, it seems unfeasible that you should find some time for yourself. Blocking out time in your calendar is a great way to stick to having some 'me time'. A good method is using a Sunday afternoon to sit and make a loose plan for the week ahead, this could include noting down what and when you are going to make time for yourself in the week ahead. Try to keep the chosen activity healthy and good for the soul. Whether it's listening to a good audiobook while going for a walk, catching up with a friend for coffee or simply cooking your family a good meal with a good spotify playlist playing. Pick things that you personally enjoy.
One thing that gets really difficult when working around family commitments is to remember to unplug. Just because you are given the ability to work from home, it doesn’t mean that your employer wants you working around the clock. Set boundaries for your time, and when you are not in work mode, unplug. Switch off from the emails and phone calls and be present in your home life. Try not to spend that time scrolling through social media, but instead create true quality time with your family.
For all working women, it is helpful to understand your menstrual cycle and all the highs and lows that come throughout the month. Planning for your creative and sales based work around the luteal and ovulation phases and using the follicular phase to reflect and get through the administrative side of things as much as your workload allows can help. We are biologically built to have a change in strengths throughout the month, so harnessing these instead of shying away from them can be an amazing strategy.
If you need to make loads of changes to help you feel more balanced in your life, don’t try to introduce all the changes at once. Instead, start small. Remember that you are doing the best that you can and try to focus on positive changes you are making rather than all the strategies that you haven’t been able to implement yet. Small changes in your habits all add up to create a better and more balanced life.
"Look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before." - James Clear, Atomic Habits
- Jamee Zohs, Immigration Business Manager at Trinity
