“I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles!”

~ZigZiglar~

Hello family happy hump dayyyyy! Man I love saying that! Okay so now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’m back to share more of my “How I Get It Done” series. As many of you know it can be challenging trying to balance work and family life, especially these days when our kids are involved in a million extracurricular activities. To be honest when I started this blogging journey I was a bit delusional myself with regard to how I was going to manage it all. The thing is sometimes it all works out great! You know those days when your kids only have two pages of homework (as opposed to the 8 they usually get), dinner is quick and easy and all is right with the world! YEAHHHH RIGHT! Now back to REALITY!

I don't know about you but more often than not things are absolutely CRAZY during the week at my house! Usually my son is swamped with a bunch of homework he simply doesn’t understand, my daughter moans about having to stop at the store for me, my husband is stuck in traffic and I end up working late. It got to the point where no one in my family was really happy with the way things were going especially ME! So last year I decided that I had enough! I was slowly but surely killing myself trying to be super woman. The truth of the matter is I COULDN'T DO IT ALL BY MYSELF! I needed help I needed to get organized I needed everyone in the family to be a little more self-sufficient and help mommy out! So here are a few things I implemented late last year to help me and my family turn things around. Now don’t get me wrong some days are still tough but at least we have a plan, a routine something that works well enough that we’re now able to shrug off the rough days.

Hugs

Shari

Use Technology to our advantage!

I was exhausted by the time I got home, so much so that the thought of helping my son with homework made me want to scream! Not only that it was a long day for him as well and when you think about it what child wants to finish homework at 7:00-8:00pm every night. I understood my son was checked out he was mentally done for the day so in all fairness I had to make a CHANGE! Then I thought, we have all this technology lying around the house let’s use it to our benefit.

So we set up google doc’s so he could upload language arts and social studies online for me to review and give feedback.
We started using Facetime every day when he arrived home from school to review his work. The best part of this plan was being able to help him whenever he got stuck.
We opened a Quizlet account and on weekends I typed up chapter questions to help him study for his exams.
I introduce him to accessible text recognition software Wynn and Natural Reader that will read out loud to him (He has auditory processing disability so this definitely helps).

You’re an Adult Now Time to Help Mommy!

My daughter is 21 so it was time for her to help pick up the slack around here! So I scheduled her to make trips to the grocery store for me during the week and Pick up/drop off her brother from (school, barber shop, basketball practice etc).

While I still cooked the bulk of the meal she was responsible for the smaller side dishes (salad, rolls etc) and helping with other miscellaneous task such as taking the dog to the groomers instead of tell me he needs to go! LOLL

Started utilizing Home Life Planners!

I know what you’re thinking More Planners! Well yes they really do help and they really do work! My productivity and business planners stay in my office and I add/mark off when I’m in my studio. The Home Life planners stay with me all day long and as things are completed or need to be added I write it out accordingly.

Trade services with Family & Friends

I have two sisters who have families of their own so it’s really cool that we can help each other out from time to time. For instance my nephew attends school with my son and comes to my house after school. So I feed him, make sure he’s done with homework and in return my sister will take the boys out on Friday’s and keep Bryce on weekends when I have something to do. Now don’t get me wrong it’s not every weekend and he is 13 but hey they love hanging out together so it works. Let me tell you the peace alone when he’s gone is well worth a few meals during the week! LOLLL

I guess the point I’m trying to make is utilize all of your resources get creative and most of all give yourself a BREAK!