Do you struggle trying to balance work and family? Juggling a career, raising children, and spending time with your significant other doesn’t usually leave a lot of time left over for you. I know that my current work life balance could definitely use an adjustment to free up some more time for my family and myself.
If your career is overwhelming your life, then it may be time for a change. Before you can make a change balancing work and family, it is probably a good idea to do a little brainstorming. If you are looking for change, consider using the Five Ws to identify your current situation and ways to fix it.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the questions you can answer that can help you balance work and family.
Who is Most Important to You?
One of the very first steps to properly balance work and family is to identify Who is most important to you. Do you have a family? Children? Significant other? You need to ask yourself if the people whom you care about are more important to you than your career.
A career should never get in the way of your family. While having a job is normally necessary to pay the bills, it should never be treated as an equal to loved ones. Ask yourself if the time you are sacrificing by putting in 70, 80, or 90 hours per week at the office are worth it? Maybe you have an unhealthy career and just don’t know it?
Just remember that you will never get those extra hours back.
What Actions Will You Take?
Now that you have determined who is most important to you, it is time to ask yourself What are you going to do about your unhealthy career? This is the time to take action in order to balance work and family. Don’t wait for things to get worse in your career or business. Stop complaining and do something about it!
Maybe it means that you need to take a lower paying job that can free up more time in your day. It could also mean you plan to start working to build passive income that can help balance your life. There are plenty of different ways to start making positive changes. The important thing is to just start taking action.
Where Will You Make Change?
Next ask yourself – “Where will you make changes in your life?” This could include cutting back hours at work, asking your manager if you can telecommute, or focusing on searching for a new job. You need to identify where you are going to make the changes to put time back in your day to help balance work and family.
Try to look at where you waste the most of your time in your career and focus on improving it!
Why do you want change?
It may be obvious, but you need to answer Why you want to make a change balancing family and work. The most logical answer is that you want to spend more time with your family.
I personally have plenty of reasons why I plan to make changes to better balance work and family. Spending time with my children and wife come to the top of the list. I would also like to run a marathon, which I would never have time to do working 80 hours per week.
Even if you are pulling in a six figure income, you need to ask yourself – How Much Money Do You Really Make?
Think of the reasons why you want to change and write them down. This will prove to be one of your best self-motivating tools to proceed forward.
When do you plan to make your change?
Time seems to be so critical, so you need to answer When you plan to improve your work family balance. It is easy to keep telling yourself you will make a change in the future. Unfortunately, most people keep telling themselves that same thing over and over while time is ticking away.
To me, my clock is already ticking. Everyday that goes by and I don’t improve my work life balance, I am jeopardizing time with my kids. They are only young for such a short period of time. I don’t want to wake up 10 years from now wondering why I didn’t see them grow up.
Final Thoughts
Having a job or career is still important. No matter what your opinion is on money, chances are you still need it to help pay the bills and a job gives you just that.
The question then becomes, is jeopardizing your work and life balance worth it? Do you really need to put in 90 hours per week just to bring in a six figure income? It may be worth it to you, but I can say it is certainly not to me!
What techniques do you use to balance work and family?
Related posts:
- How Much Money Do You Really Make?
- 5 Ways to Create a Productive Work Environment from Home
- How to Create a Family Budget
- Should I ride my bike to work?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
John,
You’re right about that. I don’t have kids, so I’m lucky in that regards, that I don’t have to make time for them as well.
I think most families in the US lack a balance between family work and life, and we’re seeing tremendous consequences of that. It’s a shame, really.
Here’s to balancing it all!
@Moon – I see so many of my co-workers sacrificing their families because they have the desire to move up the corporate ladder. Time with my family is something I am no longer willing to sacrifice.