How often do you take the time to do something for yourself? Being a caregiver, work always seems to come first, which of course isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In order to be a caregiver you have to have love and passion for what you do. You are willing to go the extra mile when it comes to work because that’s how much you care about what you do.
All of this is something to be greatly admired and respected, but because of your dedication to your work, how much are you missing out on? What if life outside of work, with family and friends, is simply passing you by and you aren’t getting to soak it all in. There is a way to remedy this potential problem. You need to find the right balance between your life at work and your life at home. Here’s the remedy:
Build downtime into your schedule. Building in a time each day to relax and let off some steam is a lot more difficult than it sounds. You have a family to take care of, which can often involve a busy night of picking kids up, making dinner, finishing homework, the list goes on and on. But it is possible to include downtime in this hectic schedule. Make your family a part of the downtime. Have a movie night, set aside time to read as a family, make cooking dinner or baking a dessert a fun and relaxing family activity.
The most important part of this downtime is unplugging the technology! This can be done! Put away the IPad, the cell phone, the Facebook and Twitter checks. When technology is still in the picture, your mind will never completely be at rest. Downtime is a time in which you need to check in to your real world and check out of the world online.
Rethink your activities. What kind of things do you do during your time outside of work? Are they activities that have some kind of worth to you? They should be! Don’t waste your time on activities that take too much time, take too much energy, or that you just don’t even want to be a part of in the first place. Make sure you are squeezing everything you can out of your time outside of work.
Create a wellness routine. What people lack the most are probably the two things that they need most. Exercise and sleep. During your time outside of work, get moving! While the last thing you probably want to do after a hard day of work is exercise, it can actually give you more energy, and it obviously has many health benefits as well. Taking the time to exercise will make you more productive, making you able to get more of the things done that you want to get done during the evening.
The second part of creating a wellness routine is ensuring that you get to bed at a decent time. A lack of sleep makes you unmotivated and tired the next day. Getting the right amount of sleep will guarantee that you will be more productive the next day and have time for not only the things that you have to get done, but also for that downtime you’ve been craving.
Work smarter rather than harder. This does not mean that you aren’t still a hard worker, and it does not mean that you don’t love your job. This simply means that you are getting more done in one step rather than two. Find ways to cut your workload, by thinking about things before you do them. Prioritize your time and find ways to simplify everyday job tasks. Make your day at work as productive and efficient as you can, so that you will have more time for your life outside of the office.
The life of a caregiver comes with much stress, exhaustion, and little free time, but you have to find ways to alleviate these things if you are going to truly enjoy your time outside of work. It is possible to have the right balance between work and life if you are willing to create new routines, new shortcuts, a new way of life. It sounds like a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the long run. Why should you have to miss out on the love and fun of your own family because you have such a great love for your clients? You don’t have to. Create a world for yourself in which all of it fits into one.