6 Ways Women Can Effectively Balance Home and Work
To every woman, home management is just as important as getting that promotion. Read further to understand how you can ace the same
A new breed of women who have come of age is the freethinking, independent kind. They, like men, have taken their right to earn their living and find a foothold and identity for themselves by whatever means they want. But the same working woman is now dealing with problems of balancing work and family.
How does the already multitasking woman hold her own and balance roles without ruffling feathers? This article is for the women who do not believe in trailblazing through the wilderness but making a trail keeping the weeds intact. The role of the modern woman has evolved. To every woman, home management is just as important as getting that promotion. Read further to understand how you can ace the same.
Women Balancing Work And Family Life – 7 Tips
Balancing work and family may seem like a terrifying and daunting task, but that really does not have to be the case. With a little bit of effort and organizing, anything is possible. The women’s struggle between career and family has been often talked about like it is some unachievable feat. As if, one can choose only one of the two, rather than balance both.
As such being a career woman, home management is a tough job but with a little bit of planning and prioritizing your family can function like a well-oiled machine. Yes, you can keep your family values intact while also breaking glass ceilings at the workplace. Here are 7 ways a woman can balance work and home so that she can crush her dreams and also simultaneously, make time for her loved ones at home:
1. Prioritize your goals
You must understand that now that you have come under the social bindings of the institution of marriage and family, there are a new set of rules that will try to define you. Finding the balance between work and life is about being set in one’s priorities depending on the situation. One must levitate one’s identity above all of that and prioritize life goals.
- It’s okay to choose family: If bringing up a child, taking care of aging parents, feeding water to the strawberry plants, keeping the expense account of the family rings a more urgent bell then you must keep them a high priority
- Just as it’s okay to choose work: If your targets, sales chart, new ventures call out to your soul with more immediacy than familial rituals, then you must keep them higher on your list
- Know what works for you: Remember, they are all under the roof of the same to-do post-it, but they have a certain order of priority that is unique to you. Do not let any preconceived notion mar that
2. Prenuptial talk
No, by prenuptial I do not mean just signing documents about possible separation. While getting a prenup is a great idea, yes, there are also other considerations that you should be mindful of. When you are a working woman entering the family of the man you love, you need to have a sit-down with the family you will be embracing before the wedding happens.
When you want to start balancing work and family, you have to have clarity on what is expected from you and how things will be run.
- Talk to your family-to-be: Have a talk with your family members about their expectations of you. Nothing is a better treatment than prevention
- Test the waters: Test your independence on the foreign ground before setting up your camp there. Then let them know what is possible on your part and what is not possible so that there is no confusion later on
- Assert life goals: No matter what you think would be the natural retaliation of both the families, go out and have a gathering to discuss their expectations of you as the new member of the family and use that opportunity to assert your life goals to the new family you are joining voluntarily
3. Have a talk with the husband-to-be
Make sure before you start your little juggling act that your life partner is on board. Women and work-life balance can be complete only with the inputs and understanding of their life partner.
While this struggle might be yours in essence, as your husband, he has a role to play in it too. I mean, you have to have him on your side when you want him to take the kids out for ice-cream when you’re too busy preparing for a board meeting?
- Don’t go at it alone: You might have been a fighter all through your life and you like setting up your own battlements and fighting too but let me tell you that you will need him on your side for this one
- Discuss work-life balance plans: Have a talk with your partner to let him in on your plans of balancing things out and make sure you give him his part to play
- He’ll be happy to play on your team: He will feel more than validated to see that he is needed in your plan. He is the only one who could really help you balancing work and family
4. Be a situationally deaf person
There will be more than one of those naysayers and you must remember to become a situationally deaf person. Every person has their own set of experiences and second-hand stories. Listen to them, but the moment you smell something unnecessary, don’t be shy to turn a deaf ear.
If you are an independent working woman in a family, you will have to develop this survival skill when conquering women and work-life balance. You don’t need anyone’s bad relationship advice or terrible judgment to spill milk on your own efforts.
- Know your mind: You are in this marriage because you want to make it work and you look forward to finding a place between your career and family
- Pay no heed to naysayers: So, juggle you shall, no matter where the cynic thinks this story is headed. Smile, nod and do your thing. Trust us you will be in a better space
5. Maintain deadlines at work and home
Ensure you have deadlines for housework like you have for your office work and try to maintain a timeframe for all the work you are doing. This is one of the marriage lessons that will take you a long way. The most important thing about balancing work and family is making enough time for both. That comes with good time management skills.
- Set deadlines: Be it finishing the dishes, submitting the file, paying the bills, arranging for the board meeting, planning the family get-together or signing that big deal – you must see all of this work as deadlines
- Embrace personal responsibilities: Do not treat your personal life responsibilities as extra baggage but as a routine deadline that you need to meet. Besides feeling emotions, every other activity must run through the same mill of performance
- Attach equal importance to both: You are delivering work, no matter if it is at work or home. Treat it thus and it will be easier than you feared. You would become the perfect working woman functioning within a family
6. Remind your colleagues that you need time to adjust
Often it is your professional front that makes it a harder patriarchal challenge than home. The women’s struggle between career and family not only exists when your baby is crying at home, but also when your boss turns a blind eye to your situation.
- Stand up for your choices: Remind your colleagues and seniors that your current status of being married is not a predicament but a personal choice
- Show you’ve got it under control: It is true that nothing in the professional sector should be affected by a personal change, but one must be given leeway to get used to a new rhythm in life. Show them that your work-life balance is top-notch
- Take the time you need: So for the betterment of the company, it is important that you are given the room to adjust to your personal life with speed to deliver optimum service to them
7. Don’t be afraid to break the rules
The rulebook says a lot about women and you must remember to forget every bit of it. Don’t let traditional rules and rituals bog you down when figuring out balancing work and family. You could be told about the traditional role of women within a family but just listen and work out your own plan.
Your own intuition will do the work for you. People think they can set standards for women and work-life balance but that is not true. This situation is unique to every woman depending on her family, work and her own personality.
- Hold on to your individuality: Treat yourself as an individual with professional ambition, passions, emotional needs and your own share of familial duties and responsibilities
- Don’t succumb to traditional expectations: It is a big decision to marry into a new family where many eyes and ears will be scanning your movements. Things that might take an archaic route will be called traditional and put on a pedestal.
- Make your own rules: Do not be afraid to break the rules. Be true to your responsibilities towards both the families – the one you were born in, the one you married into – and be honest at it. Balancing your parents and in-laws is another thing that you will do brilliantly if you learn to trust your instincts
The rest, no matter how disturbing, are just distractions that you need to grow out of. There is no denying the fact that being a working woman and managing a home and a family might be a tough job but with a little prudence, everything can be worked out. Women balancing work and family life is not impossible, neither is it too difficult.
