When I first became a leader, my two sons were young, two and five years old, and required a lot of my time and attention. Trying to find a way to balance my work and home responsibilities, while also thinking of my own mental health, was difficult, but improved after I developed a three-pronged approach to help keep everything in order. Here’s my advice to leaders—or any professionals—who are caretakers as well:
1. Organization is Key
This may seem like a basic idea, but it can often be overlooked. Keeping phone reminders, setting up events on your calendar, and making lists of tasks to do can help free up your mental capacity. No information is too little. Do you need to remember to call a colleague about a project? Add a calendar reminder! Does your child need you to give them their medication? Set a phone reminder! Want to remember which tasks were not completed during your workday? Create a to-do list at the end of each day to easily pick back up on unfinished tasks! The idea is to set reminders to keep your tasks organized with as little effort as possible.
2. Don’t Let One Affect the Other
Working a 9 to 5 while also being a caretaker means you have two full time jobs. When I first became a leader, work stress would accumulate, and I would feel stressed out before I even started my caretaking tasks. What I have found works best for me is to destress before moving on to the next “job”. When I used to work in an office this meant listening to music or an audio book while driving to either work or home. Now that I work from home, I will consciously give myself 15 minutes to destress before I move onto my next “job”.
3. Create time for yourself
Having a job as well as family responsibilities that require so much of your time and energy can make it easy to lose sight of your own needs. It’s important to make sure to recharge by having “me time” so you can give your best to both roles. Schedule time to recharge your batteries by taking time to do something you enjoy.
When you have multiple roles that you must balance, it’s important to have some guidelines for keeping both roles on track. I use the three tips above to organize, destress, and recharge myself every day.
One last note: Even when utilizing these strategies, it is still possible to have a day that feels out of control. If I ever have a completely out of control day, I like to think of a motto a friend once told me: “Take each day little by little, task by task. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Give yourself grace and start over the next morning. Every day is a new day.
