Being a parent is one of the most beautiful things in the world but it’s never easy, especially when you work full-time. Balancing your work and parenthood may be challenging but, fortunately, it’s not impossible. With the following tips, you may find your own perfect formula to juggle your responsibilities at home and at the office.
Create your own functional schedule
If you’re set on keeping your job while being a parent, it’s important to make sure that you’ll actually have time for everything (as much as that’s possible). That said, creating a functional schedule can help you. This schedule will let you plan your days and weeks in advance so that you know when you have to deal with certain tasks. For instance, you may think that paying the bills or buying groceries can wait, but, in actuality, things may be quite different but you won’t be aware of that without a clear schedule in front of you. In that respect, you should definitely make the most out of it and try to schedule all your responsibilities. Of course, leave some room for the unexpected as it’s paramount that you’re aware that things will never go 100% according to the plan.
Plan and prepare your meals in advance
Just like your previously mentioned schedule, it would be extremely helpful to meal prep and plan one week in advance as well. If you designated one day of the week for shopping, do the same for meal planning and preparation. Basically, you can decide what you’ll prepare for yourself, your child and your family for the whole week. This is the planning part. Then, you can go shopping for the necessary groceries. Once you’re done with that, you can prepare the meals and separate them in different containers for the days to come and freeze them so that they won’t go bad. Meals that are easy to cook can be prepped for cooking as well. Choose simple meals that mostly focus on mixing veggies with a source of protein. The whole thing can be done in a day.
Try working from home
In the digital age that we live in, it’s rather easy to shift your workplace to your home. For starters, you may check with your company to see whether it’s possible to do your job remotely. On the other hand, you may change jobs and try out some of the popular Internet professions depending on your skills such as blogging, web design/development, social media management, etc. What’s more, you can always be your own boss by choosing to invest in some of the most profitable franchise business opportunities available. Also, if you have a knack for arts and crafts, you can always sell your goods online as well. Therefore, make sure to weigh all your options in order to find the right work-parenthood balance for yourself and your kids.
Self-care is absolutely essential
When it comes to chasing success in life, in this case, the perfect balance between work and family, people tend to easily disregard the importance of self-care. However, this is truly an unproductive way of approaching this battle. After all, if you’re not taking good care of yourself, you won’t be able to do the same for others. And if you wish to be a good parent, partner, friend and colleague, you have to make time for your own needs, too. Everybody deserves proper self-care and love, so don’t deny yourself this right. No matter how busy you are, you should let yourself enjoy some quality “alone” time and socialize as well.
When things get more difficult than you can take without damaging your health, don’t hesitate to ask for help. You should definitely be able to count on your friends, parents and partner to help you. But even if they’re not able to do so, there’s always the possibility of hiring help or finding the best solutions in online support groups in your geographical area. Asking for help in this situation is perfectly normal, unlike burning yourself out for no good reason at all.
