How to Balance Work, Family, Play, Relationships and Life

How do you balance work and family? How do you keep up with kids, relationships, love life, career, household finances and still remain relatively sane? I've held down a job, homeschooled four kids and survived to tell the tale. Here are some tips that work for me.

Practice, not perfection. Madison Avenue would have us believe that you can have it all: family, job, gorgeous house, manicured lawn, great body, white teeth, perfect hair, balanced budget, super sex life, great relationships. The truth is, there's a give and take in finding balance. The way that I balance my life may not look the same as the way my neighbor does it. If you can learn to do the best you can and be okay with that, you'll find yourself happier, healthier and relatively balanced.

Make prioritized lists. List your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. Use a rating system. Items marked one are top priority. Address the ones on your list and move on to the other items if you have time.

Break tasks into bite-sized pieces. When you make a list, don't write: "clean house." List specific tasks that must be done. Cross them off as you go. If you prioritize, you can look at your work and feel a sense of satisfaction.

Stagger the kinds of tasks you do. Parents with young children, this is especially important. Spend 15 minutes playing with your child. Then, while she plays in her high chair or naps, work for 15 minutes at your laptops. When she's sick of the high chair, go for a walk outside. Children are much happier to play alone for a few minutes if they don't have to wait hours for you to spend time with them. Doing a variety of tasks, physical, mental, recreational, provides mini-breaks for you and will make you more productive.

Learn to multi-task. One of my favorite ways to multi-task is to set several operations in motion and let the work do itself. For example, before you go to work, run a load of wash as you get ready. Put a meal in the crock pot and set it to cook. Pop a loaf of bread in your bread machine. Load the dishwasher. Before you go, put the clothes in the washer and turn on the dishwasher. When you get home from work you have: a meal ready to eat (with fresh baked bread), clean dishes and clean clothing. When you talk on the phone, put in your bluetooth hands-free and get some chores done. My gal pal and I have reached new personal bests by cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, folding clothes and preparing meals all while chatting.

Set time management budgets. To find balance, you must be able to assess how much time it will take to complete a project and stick to the time allotment. There can be minor deviations. If you say, "I'll work on this for one hour," but actually spend three hours doing it, you aren't setting reasonable goals. If you do this regularly, you are either wasting time or you haven't realistically budgeted your time.

Learn to accept "work in progress." Life is a work in progress. Most projects are in the some stage of development. Learn to accept that you won't be able to finish every project you begin in one day.

Learn how to stop. Piggybacking on the "work in progress" concept, you have to learn when to quit. Set a timer. When it goes off, stop. There will be times when you have to push it through to complete deadlines. But your internal clock should not be set in perpetual "deadline approaching" mode. Learn to be able to set projects aside so that you can move on to the next thing.

Take breaks. Play. Rest. If these are new vocabulary words for you, it's imperative that you start practicing them today. It's not so important how you take a break as that you take them. Read a magazine, shop online, play a game, take a walk. If you stagger the type of activities you do, you'll be fresher and happier.

Eliminate clutter. I cannot think or function when I have too much stuff in my life. Shop less. Spend less. Buy less. Accumulate less. Hoard less. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Schedule fewer non-essential activities. Focus on what's important and that moment and let the rest go. This single tip has saved my sanity and helped me achieve balance on more than one occasion.

Take care of yourself. Eat right. Sleep. Exercise. Take your vitamins. Attend to your health. Seek out sources of inner peace and balance through prayer, meditation and relaxation.

Take care of your relationships. Parents, this is essential for you. Go out to breakfast or dinner once a week. Laugh, talk, unwind. Don't focus on problems, just enjoy each other. When our children were young, we had "in-house" dates. We would tuck everyone to bed (or let them read in bed to fall asleep). Then we would order pizza or grill some steaks and crack open a few cold ones. We might rent a movie, play a game or just visit. The kids knew it was date night and they were very respectful of the event. I think in those early years, those date nights saved our marriage.

Pat yourself on the back. At the end of each day, take a look at what you accomplished and feel good about it. We're so good at encouraging our children and each other, but we often forget to encourage ourselves. If you want balance in your life, you must begin with a good attitude about yourself.