Time is a challenging thing for many people. While this resource may feel abundant, it’s all too easy to find yourself lacking the time you need when you don’t have the right tools to manage it properly. For those who have a busy job and family life, this can make it extremely difficult to apply yourself to everything that you’re involved in. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring the different people in your life, giving you some ideas that should make it much easier to spend enough time on them, without having to sacrifice the time you put into your work. Of course, though, you will always have to work hard to make this work properly.

Your Work

Before delving too far into your family life, it always makes sense to think about your work. While you often need to spend a lot of time working to find success, there has to be a limit to this each day, and you need to be able to distance yourself from spending too much time at work. There are some easy ways to do this, and you can find some of the most helpful tips below.

• Schedule & Plan: Having a solid work schedule is one of the best ways to ensure that you aren’t spending too much time at work. A diary, calendar on your phone, or even a special app can be used to make sure that you aren’t giving too much to work.
• Separate Spaces: Many people work from home, nowadays, but this can make it all too easy to spend all of your time working if you’re not careful. Having a workspace away from home is a great way to solve this issue.
• Time Management: A lot of people find themselves working hard in the afternoon to make up for the time that they’ve wasted earlier in the day. Working hard at the start of the day can give you the chance to finish your work early.

As you can see, these are quite simple tricks, but they can have a huge impact on your ability to manage your career while spending enough time with your family. It can be hard to make sure that you’re not working all the time, but this will be easier if you put the right things in place.

Your Children

Your children need to see you as much as possible, especially when they are young. The relationship between a parent and a child can be a very strong one, but it can be all too easy for this role to fall to someone else if your little one spends too much time with them. Before they reach school age, it could be worth spending less time working and slowing your career down a little bit. Once they get to school, though, you will have a lot more freedom to give them the time you have.

• Book The Right Breaks: It’s likely that you are able to take time from work for a couple of weeks each year, and this can be used during your child’s school holidays to make sure that you get to spend as much time as you can with them.
• Weekends: Weekends should be a time to relax and enjoy yourself, and you should be spending as little time as possible working at these times. Planning family activities for the weekend is a great way to ensure that you have enough time for them.
• Kids Before Work: Your child should be the most important thing in your life. This means that work should never get in the way of things that matter to them, even if you have to disappoint your boss or slow your career a little in the process.

Your kids need to be able to spend time with you if they are going to develop properly. In some cases, a nanny or daycare centre can be a substitute for this, but they simply won’t be able to give your child the love you have for them.

Your Parents and Elderly Relatives

With a busy life and plenty on your plate, you can be forgiven for forgetting to spend time with your parents and other elderly relatives from time to time, but this isn’t something that you should allow to become a regular thing. People in this position often lack the socialization and time with others that come with work, making it difficult for them to feel satisfied with their lives when they are on their own all the time.

• Professional Care: Many people end up having to look after their parents once they reach retirement. This can be for loads of different reasons, but it will often mean that you don’t get to spend the right amount of quality time with them. Companies like Ohioans Home Healthcare can help you with this, providing you with everything you need to make sure that you can enjoy your time with your loved ones.
• Reserve Times: Much like spending enough time with your kids, spending enough with your elderly relatives will hinge on your ability to reserve time for them. Once a week is usually enough, but you can try to see them more if you want to.

The elderly people in your life will love to spend time with you, and it usually won’t take much for you to be able to give this to them. Of course, though, it can still be hard to prioritize this, even when you care for your loved ones deeply.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling prepared to start working hard to separate your career and your family life. Spending enough time with the people you care about can be very difficult, though this will start to get easier after a few short years. You have to work hard at something like this to find success, but this doesn’t mean that it is impossible.

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There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to choosing whether or not to continue your career after a new baby—only the right or wrong answers for you. If you do decide to continue your career, and you can afford it, hiring a nanny to look after your children is a great option.

One of the hardest things about hiring a new nanny to look after your children is preparing them for the job ahead. With so many important things to consider before they start, you need to ensure you have thought of absolutely everything. From giving them a tour of your house to writing down a list of allergies, the more you do in advance the better. With that in mind, here are 5 ways to prepare your new nanny for their job: 

Give Them A Tour Of Your House

One of the best ways to prepare your new nanny for their job is to give them a tour of your house. They’re going to be spending a lot of time in your home and if you want them to be able to do their job properly, they need to know where everything is. From the medical cupboard to your child’s favorite toys, you need to be sure they feel familiar from day one. For a guide to giving a tour of your house, you can visit this site here. 

Introduce Them To Your Children

Once they know their way around your home, you need to ensure you’re introducing them to your children. Although you may have done this briefly during the interview process, they need to spend some time with them before they officially get started. Whether this means going to the park together or heading to your local shopping center, spending time together as a family will allow them to get used to their nanny in a comfortable setting. If you’re looking at hiring nannies, you need to be sure you’re choosing someone that is going to have a great relationship with your children. 

Show Them The Neighborhood 

Once they have had a tour of your home and spent some time with your children, you need to ensure they are familiarizing themselves with the local neighborhood. From finding the local hospital to locating the nearest store to your house, the more they know about the area you live in the better. 

Give Them A Guide To Allergies And Other Important Information 

If your child has any allergies or they have a particular routine they like to stick to, you need to give all of this information to your nanny as soon as you possibly can. Not only will it give them a chance to familiarize themselves with your children, but it will also help you feel comfortable when you leave your children in their care.

Ensure They Have All The Emergency Contact Numbers They Need

Finally, you need to be sure you’re leaving your nanny with all of the emergency numbers that they need. Ideally, you need to be putting these numbers into their phone so they have easy access to them when they need them.

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Please meet guest blogger Rilind Elezaj, who reached out to share a lesson on avoiding negativity.

If you allow a negative person into your inner circle, be it in business or personal life, it will just be a matter of time until their negative attitude, pessimism, and backwardness start to rein havoc in the inner circle. This kind of people will approach you and befriend you pretending to care about you and your business but once they have your trust, they start oozing catastrophe.

Is there a way of identifying negative people and cutting them lose early enough? The short answer is no, the reason being that the negative vibes could even be coming from a close family member. In such a case, you inhale negativity every morning and in the end, you start seeing negativity and feeling it like it was a part of you. But our advice is to never allow negativity coming from people affect you or the environment surrounding you. Seek the help of a reputable life coach whenever you feel overwhelmed by the negativity around you.

The long answer, on the other hand, has everything to do with identifying negative vibes from a distance and avoiding it before it comes your way. You don’t cut it lose; you simply don’t allow it into your life.

1. Be the Author of your Attitude

Negative energy will only thrive around you if you aren’t in charge of your attitude. That is the time they move in with their bad attitudes and lend you some of their pessimism. And because we said that a negative person can be so ingrained in your life that you unknowingly overlook their negativity, it is best that you treat everyone around you as a suspect. Deliberately refuse to allow anyone, positive or negative, to influence your attitude. Tell yourself every morning that whatever happens throughout the day, you will maintain a smile through and through.

2. Ignore the Haters

Haters will always try to get into your head and spoil your mood by judging you or by giving you reports of how others were gossiping about you. Whereas that is hard to control (every human being hates to be judged), you can minimize its effects by telling your mind to stop caring too much about what other people say behind your back. And if we are to be honest, judging other people is part of the human composition. Even those you love and those who love you will judge you sometimes.

In some cases, you invite people to judge you by being dishonest and betraying their trust in you. But even when you are the cause of it, you will still feel bad when it happens. To avoid inviting malicious judgments from negative people, always try to be honest and dedicated to whatever you are mandated to do.

3. Don’t Care too Much

The secret to achieving anything in life is to not care too much about it. If you want to be happy, don’t sacrifice too much for it otherwise you will be frustrated in the long run. If you don’t want negative people in your life, don’t go looking for them everywhere. You don’t need to know them to block them out. As a matter of fact, searching for them with the mission of avoiding them later will actually make everything worse. Remember we said that even your loved ones can be the negative tumor in your life. Knowing who they are will affect your trust in people and deal a big blow to your happiness.

4. Take full Responsibility for Your Life

Negative people will always make you mad and disoriented, to the extent of affecting your productivity at work. If a close friend is negative but you are yet to decipher that, he will get into your mind and probably feed you with negative info about your partner. In the end, you become angry and do unimaginable things.

But then instead of apologizing to those you hurt and make amends, you result in blaming the negative friend for making you mad. That is exactly what the pessimist wanted you to do because when you blame him, you unknowingly refuse to take the blame for your actions and admit to everybody that he/she has you under his spell.

Always take responsibility for your actions. Don’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing you admit that they have power over you.

Related: What to do When your Boss Hates You

Bottom Line

Never allow negativity space and oxygen it needs to grow. Seek the help of a reputable life coach whenever you feel overwhelmed by the negativity around you.

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There’s no denying that your career is an integral aspect of your life. However, it’s important that you remember to work to live rather than live to work. If your job is stopping you from leading the life that you wish to lead, you must find a way to overcome this problem.

Of course, you cannot afford to simply give up work. Try these 10 simple steps instead, and you won’t go far wrong. 

1. Find A Job You Love

The old cliché that “if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day again” isn’t quite true. Still, there is no doubt that being happy in your career will have a positive impact. Whether you love hospitality or fitness, accounting or retail doesn’t matter. When you can wake up and actively look forward to your shift, it removes the pressure to squeeze fun into your recreational life. 

2. Cycle To Work

Cycling to work on a cold morning might not sound overly appealing. However, the ability to combine your commute and daily exercise into one is far more attractive. It’s more fun than sitting in heavy traffic while being able to go straight home without hitting the gym is a blessing too. On a separate note, this solution is a great way to save a little money in the process.

3. Move Closer To Work

If you spend two hours commuting to work each day, that’s 20 hours over the course of a week. Moving closer to the job may be the smartest thing you’ll ever do.  Finding a condo for sale near work place environments can be great news for your current role. Moreover, being closer to the hustle and bustle can make you an attractive prospect to future employers too.

4. Invest In A Cleaner

Not everyone will need to do this. Still, if you’re struggling to find the time for chores, hiring a cleaner may work well. This is especially true if you are self-employed or run a business because you could earn more than the cleaner charges by working. Besides, the professional will often get through those activities far quicker than you would. And you won’t need to buy the cleaning tools.

5. Make The Most Of Time Off 

There’s nothing wrong with taking a day off to recover from an illness or enjoy a lazy day on the sofa. Nevertheless, your annual leave is limited, and you’ll want to do more with it. Taking vacations, road trips, and days out needed break the bank. Better still, exploration broadens the mind and should provide clarity in life. Moreover, the magical memories are sure to last a lifetime.

6. Cut Down On Tech Time

Modern tech is a wonderful thing that allows us to stay in touch with loved ones. Sadly, the temptation to spend hours talking to old school friends and people we no longer see can get in the way of relationships in the real world. Learn to focus on the people that actually matter to you now, and your personal life will feel enriched. A break from tech is extra important if you work with it too.

7. Earn More

Managing your time isn’t the only challenge. Money is incredibly important if you want to enjoy a better lifestyle, and your job is the main source of it. Asking your boss for a raise in an effective manner could be the key to making your life a little easier. Apart from anything else, it may remove the need to take on overtime. Those extra hours can be spent doing something far more productive. 

8. Don’t Be Afraid To Clock Off

Thanks to modern communication, it’s possible for employers to maintain links to their employees at all times. Unless it’s something urgent, you’d rather it just wait. Don’t be afraid to turn off the notifications on your emails and team messaging Apps, especially if you have a day off. Worrying about work when you’re not even will soon eat away at your enjoyment in and out of work.

Related Posts

• 5 Things to Know about Working from Home
• 5 Reasons not to Quit Your Job Right Now
• How to Write a Resignation Letter When You Hate Your Boss

9. Enjoy Time With Colleagues

It’s a crazy phenomenon, but you’ll probably spend more time with work friends than lifelong mates. While you are primarily there to work and earn money, a little friendly chat can actively boost your productivity. Welcoming new colleagues to the team can make a big impact on your life as well as theirs. Likewise, it’s never too late to make new friends with old colleagues.

10. Know What You Want

 It’s very easy to go through life without really focusing on the things you want. Take the time to determine what matters to you. This should cover your work life as well as your personal life, and will help guide you to far smarter decisions. When you are focused on the intended destination, the journey becomes far smoother. With less time being wasted, your work-life balance should thrive.

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If you’re spending your entire weekend doing chores, you probably return to work on Monday feeling tired. No one does their best work when tired. Instead of spending the entire weekend grocery shopping, taking the kids on play dates, and cleaning the house, carve out some time for self-care. You will be amazed how taking just a little time for yourself can supercharge your productivity.

Here are a few self-care ideas to practice this weekend:

Eat Right

If you spend your workweek lunch hours sitting in line at a drive through, you probably feel sluggish by 2 PM. Over the weekend, instead of following the same fast-food routine, pick up healthy, easy-to-grab snacks and meals during your grocery run. If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, grab nuts, dried fruit, and cheeses instead of cheese doodles and donuts.

To make meal planning healthier and easier on the weekend (and all week, for that matter), look at in-store recipes and meal kits at your local grocer. If you live near a Fresh Market, their Little Big Meals make great, healthy meals the whole family will enjoy. Unlike most things at Fresh Market, the Little Big Meals are reasonably priced at $20 for a three (or more) course meal for a family of four. This past week, we had barbecue pork sandwiches on brioche buns, with coleslaw, corn on the cob, and cupcakes for dessert.

Publix is my go-to for groceries, so we often buy rotisserie chickens or plain, un-breaded wings for weekend munchies. You can order wings from the Publix app, which saves a ton of time. You can order sandwiches and deli cuts from the app, too. Publix has even started delivery in some areas, so really, do you even need the drive through on the weekdays?

Dress Beautifully

It’s easy to think that just because you’re not at work you can wear whatever you want. It’s true, but running around town in yoga pants and a super messy bun probably isn’t doing much for your self-esteem. It’s probably making you feel like you’re a mess outside of the office.

Take the time to put on clothes that make you feel good about yourself, even on the weekend. If you feel like you have nothing to wear, try something like Filly Flair that provides numerous summary styles and accessories.  Visit their site if you are looking for inspiration.

As far as your beauty routine, you can still feel relaxed yet look put together. Experiment with easy updos, and try a lip stain like Revlon Colorstay so you don’t have to think about your lipstick at all after you apply it in the morning. My weekend makeup is generally lipstick and mascara, but do whatever you need to feel like you’re taking care of yourself.

Take a Walk

Try to slip away for at least half an hour over the weekend to walk outside. Be deliberate about it—feel the warm sun on your skin. Smell the flowers. Embrace the wind. Just being outside is often enough to feel rejuvenated, but the physical action of walking can make you feel more confident, mindful, and relaxed.

Take a Nap

Even a quick, 30-minute nap can make you feel more rested and focused. It’s a nice time-out for your brain, and a common habit among successful people.

Read Something Recreational

During the workweek, we are focused on reading emails, text messages, memos, and industry-related materials that we forget what a joy reading can be. On the weekend, try to find a few moments to read something you enjoy.

You don’t have to read novel to experience the joy of reading. Pick up a pretty magazine at the grocery checkout, but steer clear of the ones that have diet tips plastered all over them. You don’t need that kind of negativity when you’re trying to relax.

Do One Thing

If you’re reading this list and thinking, “I don’t have time to sit around and read a magazine and take a nap,” make the commitment to yourself to do just one thing for you this weekend. It doesn’t have to be a big something. Find half an hour to try just one thing that will help you relax and refocus. You’ll be surprised at how much more you will accomplish after even a small break.

Wake Up Early (Maybe)

Other people suggest waking up super early to feel more successful and productive, but Jarell and I haven’t had much luck with that. Check out this video to learn more about that theory:

Eat the Frog on Monday Morning

If the weekend flies by and you find yourself feeling cheated on Monday morning, the best thing you can do is tackle your most difficult tasks at the beginning of the day. Whatever you’re dreading, get it over with. The rest of your day, or even your workweek, will feel smoother and more accomplished with this task out of the way, and you’ll be more likely to feel secure in taking a little time for yourself when the weekend comes again.