Setting priorities for improving the joint quality of life you desire is a major component of creating and maintaining meaningful family experiences.
The demands of work, community, wellness, and family can be overwhelming, but meeting them is rewarding. Don’t feel like a juggler with too many plates in the air, wondering when it will all come crashing down.
The following tips will suggest ways to create time for things you’d like to accomplish and help you evaluate what’s important:
- Schedule quiet, alone time. During it, make a list of what is important to you in your personal and professional life. Consider things like spending quality time with your spouse, activities with your children, exercise, cooking, meditation, and career development. Number the items according to their importance to you. This process will help clarify your priorities and motivate you to set goals that will help you realize them.
- Every day, create a list of tasks you must complete on the next day. This simple organizational tool helps you retain focus on the task at hand. Next to each item, write a completion time estimate. At the end of each day, refer to the day’s list and move any remaining tasks to the next day’s list.
- If both you and your spouse have children from previous relationships, continue to separately parent your children. Develop a cohesive parenting style in order to reduce confusion for the children and increase togetherness and connectedness for the family.
- Delegate to other family members things they do better than you or mind less doing than you do. Chores will help your children acquire necessary, independent living skills.
- Re-evaluate your priority list quarterly. Your priorities may shift due to unexpected circumstances or because you accomplished certain things, and it may be time to add new items to your priority list.
- Remember that you must be a major priority on your priority list. Reserve daily time for yourself to exercise, laugh, pray, read, or just rest. It will help you feel centered and grounded, and therefore to be a better spouse, parent, and person.
Figuring out your priorities can be a fascinating journey into your values and beliefs. It is a process that can be challenging yet rewarding as you have the opportunity to focus more on what is really important to you and let go of what is no longer a priority.
As always, your feedback is very important to me. Share how much time and energy you devote to what you feel is important. Tell me how this article helped you reevaluate some of your priorities.