|  Licensed Psychologist rudolphs@comcast.net (970) 203-0643 |
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Top Ten Ways to Claim More Time for Yourself and Your Family 1. Prevent work from dictating the pace of life When you're working be focused and productive and when you're home be home. Don't bring work home or designate a block of time as family time (for example 5:00-8:00pm) where you are totally focused on your family. Turn off the cell phone, e-mail, and pager. 2. If you live with a significant other, strive for partnership in sharing household responsibilities Many couples are successfully negotiating and sharing household responsibilities and decision-making. Household chores may include cleaning, grocery shopping, meal preparation, laundry, parenting, homework, bedtime routines, and transporting kids. If neither one of you want to do certain tasks or are unable to because of your work schedule, discuss what you can afford to hire out. For example hire a cleaning service, laundry service, grocery delivery service or order prepared meals. Frequently, moms take responsibility for ensuring that the needs of the family and individual family members are met. Organizational household chores include connecting with the children's schools, keeping track of what's needed for the fifth grade science project, scheduling doctor’s appointments or purchasing the present for the upcoming birthday party. Moms can delegate tasks to other family members or initiate the use a family calendar so that other family members can participate in keeping track of responsibilities. 3. Establish and use a family calendar This is an important strategy for tracking family obligations. Consider holding a family business meeting. Share responsibly for putting things on the family calendar. Use the family calendar to plan for family fun and recreational events as well as coordinate weekly logistics. 4. Create emotionally significant couple and family rituals Don't allow your children's community activities become a substitute for family time. Build in time for connecting with your children without distractions by establishing a family ritual that is emotionally significant. This might be a bedtime chat, mealtime chat, parent/child date, family game night or movie night. It is also essential to set aside couple time. Research has shown that couples who spend a minimum of 5 hours per week together have more satisfying marriages. Consider creating a daily and or weekly ritual for nurturing your relationship. This may include visiting over an after dinner coffee, having a weekly date night, going for a walk or meeting for lunch. 5. Prevent over scheduling yourself and children It is easy to become caught-up in over scheduling ourselves and children with extra activities. Consider letting each child choose to participate in one extra curricula activity at a time. 6. Prioritize family meals Make family meal time a priority and a time for connection. Don't eat in front of the TV or in separate rooms. Use this time as an opportunity for visiting and togetherness. Make spending time together the priority over what's for dinner. . If you can't do dinner together because of your schedules, try breakfast or lunch. Eating meals out together also count. 7. Create time to hang-out together Planning unstructured time at home on the weekends will increase the likelihood of spontaneously connecting with your kids. Even if it's part of a day - be it one morning, afternoon or evening. 8. Maintain your Boundaries Maintaining your boundaries is an important factor in honoring what is most important to you. Before you agree to take anything on that adds more stress to your life, ask yourself, "How does this fit with what is most important for me?" “If I choose to say yes to this, what will I have to say no to?” When you're clear about what's most important to you. It's easier to just say no. 9. Keep your commitments One of the biggest challenges is to keep our word to ourselves by staying true to our own commitments. Whenever we neglect something that is important to us, be it spending time playing with our kids, attending our kid's sporting event, saving instead of running up dept, or being more patient with your significant other we break these promises to ourselves and experience guilt. It's important to start from where you are and make small commitments that lead to success. 10. Take Care of Yourself It's easy to ignore our emotional and physical health, until we have a problem. Your most important asset is you. Take time for yourself. As you would schedule an important meeting, schedule some blocks of time for yourself during the week to exercise, read, relax, and/or do something fun. | ||||
