Balancing life as a working mom has its difficulties, then you add the military lifestyle into the equation, and it’s even harder. So, how do we find the time to be more intentional in all those areas of our life? How do we effectively carry out such tasks and feel accomplished at the end of the day? Those were the questions I needed answers to, and if you have struggled in asking the very same thing, you are not alone.
I want to share three practical tools that have helped balance my life as a working mom.
Priority Management
I learned that priority management is essential to finding balance. Would you mind taking a moment and observing how remarkable you are with all the hats you wear? Let us prioritize them effectively and reclaim your presence of mind. Classify and arrange your to-do list based on how you define what matters most to you. When we categorize life priorities, it helps set realistic expectations for whatever tasks or activities you have and align them with the time you have available.
I used to get overwhelmed when I felt as though everything was piling up around me all at once, causing me to get easily distracted by everything except the thing I was supposed to be doing. I even found these distractions trickling into my family time. I needed balance, and I needed to be more intentional in all those areas of my life, leading me to the second practical tool…
Timeblocking
Such a game-changer! Carving out time for specific life priorities? I wish I would have known this concept sooner. Blocking out times for particular tasks or activities that are most important to you at that moment sets a founding principle, quality over quantity. Let us seek quality over quantity from now on. Throw away the concept of time management because we cannot manage time; time continues by itself, period. This new boundary allowed me to maximize my progress by narrowing in on a particular focus for the specific amount of time I saw fit.
If you work from home with little ones still in the house, this is extremely helpful because blocking out time allows you to set aside time that works best for your household realistically.
Disclaimer: Will your day-to-day scheduling look the same every day? No, not always. Why? Because our life in the military is anything but consistent, and that’s okay.
Flexibility
The last practical tool I could leave you with is to be mindful of giving yourself that leeway to adjust and move. Be flexible. I understand that may be asking a lot for some, but our lives revolve around the military mottos of “adjust and move” or “hurry-up and wait.” Give yourself that wiggle room that may involve flexible start and stop times for what you carved out for your block time. The concept of flexibility ultimately is designed to give you greater control over when, where, and how much work will be done with the ability to adapt to change, mainly when home life changes in those seasons of deployments, field exercises, PCS seasons, and so forth.
Stay encouraged, give yourself some grace and keep growing. You’ve got this!
