When you fail to plan you plan to fail so develop strategies for work-life balance.
Take time now to develop strategies for work-life balance in your world. When trying to develop these strategies, think about:
- layout of home and office
- hours needed for work
- family schedule
- your ability to follow plans
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Layout of Home and Office
In order to make a workable plan for balancing your obligations and work and home, you must think about the layout of your home and office space. Work at home entrepreneurs who have offices that share space with family living quarters must understand that work will be interrupted by family constantly. If you do not have a separate and distinct work area, you will not be able to work uninterrupted and it will be difficult to keep your work supplies from being disturbed by others who are carrying out the regular functions of life. On the other hand, if you have a separate and distinct work area, you will be able to retreat to your work space to get work done. You will also be able to keep your work supplies out where you want as you leave work to carry out personal activities with your spouse and family. You must take a realistic look at your home and office layout if you want to be successful when you develop strategies for work-life balance.
Hours Needed for Work
No matter what type of work you do, it takes a certain number of hours to do it. When developing strategies for work-life balance, you must have a clear idea of the hours you need for work each day. You may decide to split your work hours so that you do some work before your family gets up in the morning, other work after your family has gone to bed and still other work while your family is engaged elsewhere. This is all fine. The important thing is to know the amount of time you need to devote to work in order to successfully complete the tasks you need to complete.
Family Schedule
In order to adequately balance obligations at work and home, you must have a good grasp on your family schedule. There are some things on the family schedule that you have very little control over. These things include:
- school hours
- school vacation schedules
- child care arrangements
- spouse’s work hours
- joint family activities
All these things must be considered because the impact the amount of time you will be able to spend at work and when work will be interrupted by family members. School hours and vacation schedules are things you have very little control over because for the most part, they are set by others. These things must be considered when you creating a work-life balance plan. The time your spouse will spend at work and those specific hours are important considerations in your work life balance plan. It is also important to keep in mind that time must be set aside for joint family activities. In most cases, we work in order to do better by our families. As a result, we want to be sure that we spend time enjoying our families.
Your Ability to Follow Plans
One of the most crucial parts of developing workable strategies for work-life balance is following the plan you create. No matter how many factors you take into account as you create your plan, it is all for nothing if you are unable to stick to the plan once you create it v. This is important because it puts the ultimate success of your plan to balance work and life into your hands. Take time to create realistic strategies for work-life balance, then make sure to follow the plan you create!
You can succeed in your efforts to develop workable strategies for work-life balance if you remember that you get to decide what work-life balance means. You get to determine what it means, how to do it and you can change the way things work at any time. The best thing about the work-life balancing act is that you control it and can make it work for yourself, your family and your business.
If you would like to read more articles about work-life balance, check out the following:
It is fantastic to run a business where the employees have learned to properly balance work and home. At least once per year this is a big uproar when one “expert” or another writes a big article on how modern women are struggling to “have it all.” Typically the articles have a lot of moaning and complaining about the need for balance and how impossible it is to balance one’s work life and home life, how impossible it is to have it all. Smart entrepreneurs and supervisors know that employees are better workers when they are not overwhelmed by their responsibilities at work and at home. Click here to read more.
As a work at home mother, I am uniquely aware of the struggle involved in trying to balance work and home. We must work in order to earn a living and at the same time, we must spend time with our families, because that is where our hearts lie. That is the reason for this series, to show that we can balance work and home and emerge happily on the other side. In order to do that, we must use careful planning strategies. Thus – the plan fail dichotomy. Click here to read more.
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