Four years ago, I was a guest speaker at a conference for school secretaries and my assigned topic was "Balancing Career and Home". I had been invited to speak several months before the conference.
As I stood before the microphone, the irony of the situation hit me full force. I had resigned at my high school as an assistant principal just a month earlier. I had had my own vision and knew that it was time for me to stay home full-time. That was a complete turn around from two years earlier when I had fasted and prayed to confirm a decision to quit and received the answer to stay at work.
So my first words were, "I am supposed to tell you how to balance your career and home life and I just quit my job. I guess I don't know how!" Laughter erupted.
Well, a perfect job appeared this fall and I have returned to work, but balancing work and family is no laughing matter. Whether you are a single mother or father, a SAHM who returned to the workforce recently due to economic reasons or have always worked, accomplishing the important work at home and at work is never-ending.
What are some ways we can make the balancing act easier?
Start the day with a ten minute meeting with yourself. Say your personal prayers, read a scripture or two or a chapter. Those personal religious behaviors set the tone for your day. Then review your schedule and establish two or three priorities for the day.
Keep work at work and home at home. In the past, I have not been good at keeping work at work. I would drag home boxes of papers to correct and lessons to plan. If I didn't do the work, I felt guilty. If I did the work, I missed out on family time.
This time around, I try to make the most of every day at work with work and save family responsibilities for home. As I drive to work, I mentally picture putting family concerns in a file and putting it away and getting out my work file. On the drive home, I put away the work concerns in the file and open the family file. It's not perfect but it is working!
Consciously decide what you are going to let go. A good friend once told me that with the birth of each of her children, she consciously had to decide what "thing" she was going to let go, such as elaborate girly hair-dos for school, vacuuming everyday, etc. What work and home "things" can you let go? For me, it is the housecleaning. I want a clean, spotless house, but it's not happening. However, dinner is--dinner together most nights is more important to me than freshly dusted and vacuumed rooms.
Enlist help. Every family member needs to contribute. In a family council, have each family member make a list of how he or she can help the family and then select one. My sister's children are responsible to do their own laundry. A young woman in my ward is responsible to cook one meal for the family each week. Our children are more capable than they want us to know.
Prepare for tomorrow by working today. Take 10 minutes at the end of your work day and at home to organize for tomorrow. Before leaving the office, spend a few minutes cleaning off your desk (or at least one pile!) and leave the next day's list or work ready to greet you. At home, make the lunches, set out the clothes and put the homework in the backpacks. This small step will bring peace to you.
"Balancing Career and Home"--I'm still not ready to give a speech. It is a quest for a lifetime.
