Can Family and Work be Child's Play?
Happy Children’s Day! Today marks a day to celebrate our little ones and for them to celebrate with a break from school. For many of us, our children are an important and precious part of our lives. As much as we love our family, finding a balance between career and family can be difficult at times. Here are some tips to make creating that balance much easier.
Set Priorities
When we have important deadlines to meet, there are moments when work comes first before everything else. However, balancing your family time with work requires you to set your priorities and decide what is most important to you at a given time or period. A simple way to make time for your family could be blocking out a day in the week to spend time with them or at home. Practise saying ‘no’ to non-essential requests that demand your time on those days in order to put your family first.
Disconnect!
In this digital age, we’re constantly bombarded by flashy advertisements, new content as we scroll, and notifications pinging from our devices every second. These digital interruptions can often stand in the way of focusing on your family while you’re with them. Achieving work-life balance can be as simple as having a meal with them without any mobile devices! Mobile devices can provide our little ones with entertainment and can help us keep them busy while we work, but can serve as a barrier between getting to truly enjoy the presence of our loved ones. During family outings or meals, we may often find ourselves scrolling through emails or bombarded by work-related texts. Putting mobile devices away or turning on ‘Do Not Disturb’ can make a world of a difference when it comes to spending quality time with your family.
Review
As you implement these new changes in your life and create boundaries with regard to work and family, don’t be afraid to take a pause and to examine how things are going. Do you feel like you have achieved better balance with your work and your family? Do you feel more present during family-time? Check in on your family and ask them for their thoughts. At times, others can give us a more accurate picture of our behaviours and routines than we can. At the core of it, balancing work and family means that your family should feel loved and appreciated, so asking them how they feel is of great importance as well.
At BCD, we understand the importance of family. Many of our members are happy mothers or fathers who enjoy their work as well. If you’re interested to find out more, feel free to contact us. At BCD, our focus is you.
