Networking is vital to a successful career in almost any field. Without the time and ability to engage in networking at the same level as their non-parent peers, working parents need to get creative and develop concrete strategies for cultivating professional relationships. If you’re struggling to find the time, try systematizing your approach so that it becomes a seamless part of your routine without stealing precious hours from your day with these easy strategies.
A 75-year study at Harvard University, known as the Grant Study, found that close relationships — more than money, fame, IQ, or genes — are what keep people happy and healthy over a long life. It’s one thing to cultivate close relationships with people who live under our roof or within our community. But staying close to those who live further away is a whole different challenge. Often, we tend to rely on social media to do the heavy lifting, keeping us up-to-date on the lives of our friends and family members. But that can’t be all there is. For our long distance relationships to go the distance, it’s important to actively prioritize and nourish them.
Once you have children, it’s almost as if you forget how to have a real adult conversation. It’s so easy to revert to talking about kid logistics, or kid activities, or kid-anything — but that comes at a cost, to the sense of connection you have with your significant other. For the health of your relationship — and your own well-being — it’s essential to make time for each other, with no kids involved. Read on for a few ideas to get you started…
The Beatles had it right… “All You Need is Love.” But not just the romantic kind. People thrive on friendships and human connection. Strong personal relationships are essential to our health and wellbeing. Yet, many of us are so overwhelmed by the demands of our day-to-day work and personal lives, we neglect to put the effort into our social lives. All too often, Friday night rolls around, and we realize we haven’t made any plans for the weekend. One of the best ways to ensure you connect with others on a regular basis is to create routines and habits that zap planning from the equation.
Often, we feel that our homes are not conducive spaces for socializing or nurturing our relationships. Just think, how many times have you wanted to invite guests over, but the living room was buried under a pile of clutter too time consuming to tackle? Or wanted to sit down and relax with your partner after a long day, but there was nowhere for you to just sit and be without your eye being drawn to a screen or something to clean? The good news is, you don’t have to reorganize your whole home until it looks like a perfectly manicured Pinterest board in order to create a space for connecting. In fact, all you really need is one or two spots dedicated to peaceful retreat. The elements that make up your space can be completely personal — the key is simply that the space be instantly relaxing, functional, and easy to maintain.
Ginny loved her work. A vice president of marketing for an ad agency, in many ways her work defined her. Yet, Ginny’s passion for her work made her feel guilty. It took time away from her kids (7, 11 and 13) and often distracted her when they were together. She wondered constantly if she should put her goals and passion on hold, to be a better parent for her kids. This question — to work, or not to work — is emblematic of a struggle many parents face.
You may have heard that 90% of who we become as adults is the result of what happens in the first seven years of life. It would be a pretty cruel joke of nature, if the greatest impact we have as parents is when we are least experienced. Parenting is one of the most complex jobs in the world and it doesn’t come with any training or an extension number we can dial for “technical” support. We’re all just learning as we go. We’re bound to make mistakes. Luckily, recent science has found that while the early years do matter very much, the later years do too.
We all desire self-care. More importantly, we’ve all come to understand that we need self-care. The physical and psychological benefits of self-nurturance have been scientifically proven, time and time again. It’s no longer a revolutionary concept. But we often struggle to attain and sustain it because, well, life happens, getting in the way of our best laid plans. So what can we do? It’s time to reframe our thinking on self-care.
Many people think exercise means 60-90 minutes three times a week, at the gym or in a class. And it can be difficult to break out of that notion; it’s how most of us used to exercise before we had kids. Now, as a parent, you may have adopted an all or nothing mentality: you know it’s impossible to exercise as much as (or in the way) you once did, so you stop altogether. It’s time to rethink your exercise routine. Let’s envision a new approach to fitness.
The Holidays present a time challenge to everyone, especially parents; not only must we continue to provide and arrange, but we have the added responsibility to create holiday magic for our kids. With an increased workload, it can be all too easy to lose sight of ourselves and our own needs. The catch-22, of course, is that it’s when we have the least amount of time for self care that we require it most. To keep yourself operating at peak capacity this holiday season, check out these quick S.E.L.F. care tips to maintain adequate levels of sleep, exercise, love, and fun.
Work-life balance — we all crave it, yet it seems so incredibly difficult to achieve. It’s easy for us to say “it’s impossible… my job is just too demanding.” And that might be true. In today’s work-place climate, it’s all too easy for work to become a 24/7, all-consuming aspect of our lives. Yet, with very few exceptions, it likely doesn’t need to be this way.
A friend once said that what she loves about travel, is that every time you go on a trip, you are changed forever. She is so right. We see and experience things when we go to places we’ve never been that simply cannot happen by armchair travel through a Google search. This summer, I had an extraordinary opportunity to go to Africa--and it was one of those trips that changed me in ways I am still synthesizing.
The moment we get busy, taking care of ourselves is usually the first thing to go as we put caring for others and job responsibilities first. Many of us take our bodies for granted, pushing ourselves to the limit, basically ignoring our physical and emotional needs until the body screams out and demands attention. But, what can we do to build healthy habits to go the distance? Here are three areas to focus on…..
School's out for summer. And you know what that means for kids and parents everywhere: lots of family time, later than usual bed times, and for working parents especially, a mad scramble to cobble together a week-to-week schedule that keeps the kids engaged and safe…
For many people, breaking away from the gravitational pull of work is extremely difficult. Our drive to get things done, feel a sense of accomplishment, and succeed often keeps us working well past the point of diminishing returns. We find ourselves saying, “Let me just squeeze in one more thing from my to-do list and THEN I’ll go home for the day,” or “Once we get past these huge projects, THEN I’ll take a vacation.”
Your energy levels have a profound impact on your effectiveness. Think about it. Amongst your circle of friends, you can see the differences: there is the friend who is up at the crack of dawn, to the one who always hits a workout after 7pm, to the one wide-awake working on proposals well after midnight. Harnessing your energy cycles isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” conversation. So how do you figure yours out?
Time management is the art of accurately calculating how long things take, how to plan an appropriate amount of time for tasks and find more efficient ways to get them done. Wouldn’t it be great if your kids were good at it? Imagine the drama you can avoid by not having a nightly battle over homework, or a last-minute dinosaur diorama crisis, or a college essay deadline disaster…
When Glenn Close won a Golden Globe for her role in “The Wife” earlier this year she said something in her acceptance speech that made me stand up in my own living room and say “Preach!” She talked about her mother, (who’d spent her life supplementing herself to her father), and who, in her eighties, told Close that she felt hadn’t accomplished anything because of it…
Most families I coach struggle with their morning routines. One shoe is always misplaced. Someone’s always in danger of missing the bus or being late to a meeting….
It never ceases to astound how the duties of running a household are, by and large, considered a mother’s domain. Now often referred to as “emotional labor,” this burden is getting a lot more attention these days.
As any perfectionist will tell you, advice to just “know when good enough is good enough” or “take it easy” fall on deaf ears. Asking a perfectionist to quit being a perfectionist is like asking a bird to quit flying; it’ll never work.
Q: I work from home, and with my kids home for the summer, I am having a hard time getting things done. What should I do?
A: Working from home brings a certain sense of freedom– you can set your own schedule, create your own office culture, and perhaps best of all, relish the joys of the world’s shortest commute.
What do you do when 30 minutes of free time falls in your lap? A client with two school aged kids shared this story the other day:
“Pat was grocery shopping, Max was at a playdate, Eliana was taking a nap. I suddenly found myself with a glorious window of time and I should have done something fun, but I had no idea what to do with myself.”
Great figures in literature, philosophy, religion, science, and entertainment have considered for eons what it means to be in the moment. Whether it’s about awareness, clarity, a sense of purpose, mystery, or wonder, “the moment” is a state of being; one that is as elusive as it is rewarding.
By early June, kids are excited for the last day of school and parents -- eager as they are for a break from the daily grind -- are thinking, what the heck are we gonna do for the next three months? Every parent lives in fear of hearing their kids say those two little words: “I’m bored.”
Exercise is often one of the first things to go when parents feel spread too thin. People say they don’t have time. Or that they are too tired. Or that they feel selfish taking time away from their kids. More often than not, though, moms and dads just don’t know how to fit exercise into a crammed schedule.
To fit in exercise, parents need to redefine what it means to work out.
My Slashie profile can look intimidating at first glance: Entrepreneur / Business Owner/Author/Speaker/Organizational Coach/Boss/Bae/Mom/Friend/Swimmer/Shower Singer. I’m used to wearing many hats and juggling numerous responsibilities with my clients, staff, family and friends. Though my to-do list is often lengthy, I enjoy the challenge and conquer my days by making every moment as productive as possible...
Over the holidays, I went to Puerto Rico to visit family for their annual Christmas Party. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, I didn’t know what to expect and arrived prepared for anything — from bringing fun, good energy to help my relatives take a break from the stress, to rolling up my sleeves and helping with the recovery.
In my early days as a professional organizer, my company was called Task Masters — with the tag line “we do life’s drudgery for you.” One year in mid-December, I got a call from a new prospect who wanted help preparing for the holidays. There were 2 weeks until Christmas, and she hadn’t had time to decorate her house, shop for gifts, wrap, send cards or prepare for Christmas dinner. We worked non-stop 8 hours per day for 8 days, and by December 24th everything was flawless and ready for its closeup
With great power, comes great responsibility. Twenty years ago, we may not have imagined a world in which every person could hold great power in the palm of their hand. And then came the smartphone… providing us with a whole lot of power, and a responsibility we may not have been prepared to accept. Ultimately, our devices have the power to allow us to connect or disconnect at will. And it’s up to us to decide how we use technology in our everyday lives — whether we allow it to lift or limit the quality of our social interactions.