It’s well past midnight, you turn in the key and tip-toe to the bedroom. On the bed, your spouse is fast asleep next to your ten-month-old toddler. You feel a pang of guilt; you have reached home late for three straight nights. That means no family dinner, no bedtime stories to share with your daughter and no time for a tete-a-tete with your spouse either.
Half an hour later after a quick shower, you find yourself stifling a yawn and gulping yet another cup of coffee to keep the drowsiness at bay. It’s an effort to keep your fingertips pecking at the keyboard in an attempt to finish an assignment that was due three days ago. You are aware of an acute pain niggling down your back. It has been there for the past two weeks. You know the pain comes whenever you are overstressed.
It’s a classic scene for many young parents who continually juggle work, family and personal needs. How do you juggle all three to lead a satisfying life? How do you meet deadlines and at the same time ensure you have time for grocery shopping, do the laundry, have fun with your kids, catch up with your spouse and equally important, have time for yourself?
Here are some strategies you can do at home and at work to help keep you in stride.
1. Get enough sleep. Seriously. Your body is not a machine. You may think you can’t afford to have enough sleep so you cut back on it to allow yourself more time on your hands. While this strategy may work for a night or two, it is self-defeating in the long run because lack of sleep is linked to tiredness and irritability and lowers your immune system. Sleep is one of nature’s best medicines. Research shows that our brain remains active while we sleep, secreting essential hormones that affect the entire body. Not sleeping when we should tips the hormonal balance. Recent research suggests this may affect our appetite and indirectly cause weight gain. Apart from that, not having sufficient sleep affects your alertness; you may make costly mistakes both at work and at home.
2. Change the way you do things. Look for time savers. Think: What can I afford not to do to save time? Cooking on alternate days perhaps? How can I make less shopping trips to the grocer? Outsource low-added value activities where possible. Send your clothes to the nearest laundry centre for washing and / or ironing. Look for a part-time maid. When it comes to housework, forget about perfection. Perfectionism wreaks havoc, not only in your life, but also in those around you.
3. Stop juggling too many things. Less is more. The more selective you are with the things you must do in a day, the less number of tasks you’ll have to do and the more time you’ll have for yourself, your work and your family. The less furniture you have, the less is there to dust and clean and the more time you’ll have in your hands. If you find yourself having more stuff than you need, you might want to consider giving it away for charity or selling it to a second-hand shop.
4. Beware of time-stealers. Be jealous of your time. Are you spending more time than necessary to answer phone calls, or to browse through newspapers and magazines? As a rule of thumb, the most you need to browse through local newspapers is ten minutes. Learn to speed read.
5. Look for opportunities to be flexible. Find out if your employer is warm to the idea of job-sharing, teleworking or flexi hours. More and more employers are accepting this kind of arrangement as employees lead to better work performance and disgruntled stuff causes a high turnover and less productivity which translates into higher costs for employers.
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