Your weekdays begin and end the same way: you’re exhausted. Let’s face it; in a world not too long ago ruled by men, many women are still trying to prove that they are as capable when it comes to climbing the corporate ladder. Bring children into the mix and these same women often feel the need to double-down their efforts to prove they can raise a family and run a company. Thankfully, there are many ways to achieve your goals. You just have to figure out how to make the best use of your time.
Apps Worth Trying
You live in a time that offers many conveniences not privy to just a generation ago. Take advantage of them. Apps can save you valuable time and possibly free up enough of that precious commodity to actually give you a few minutes to breathe. For instance, if you have a young child at home under the age of a year and you breastfeed, getting called at the last minute for a late-night meeting at the office may present a problem for your milk supply. However, with the Milk Stork app, you can pump milk, send it home, and have it delivered in time to avoid a problem.
Doing research is easier as well. You’re up late with your child, rocking them to sleep and come across information on the web that may be useful on your next project. With programs like the Evernote app, website capture is a breeze. You can clip a portion of a web page (or the entire page), and then, when you have the baby down for the night, you can bring it up quickly and review it.
Learn to Say No
For most working moms life is at best a juggling act, where some days you get through effortlessly and others where you are in high demand and you can’t seem to get a single task completed. While you want to do it all, you simply cannot. That’s something you’ll have to accept. With that said, picking and choosing certain events or doing the occasional overtime or extra assignment on the job will allow you to still achieve your goals on both fronts. You don’t have to be the parent that shows up for every soccer practice, the games are good enough. You don’t have to volunteer for every extra assignment to gain recognition at work to align yourself for a possible promotion. The quality of your efforts will overshadow the amount of time invested.
Prioritize Your Life
There are so many tasks to complete within a single day that, after you list them, just starring at the paper with words that nearly reach the bottom is overwhelming on its own. So, an alternative is to highlight the items on the list that you absolutely must complete that day. If you manage to check off a few not highlighted you’ll feel elated and a sense of accomplishment versus feeling like a failure. The rest of the items on your to-do list can wait for the next day.
Getting Rest
You may wonder how getting rest will play a role in saving you time. Here’s the answer: if you don’t get the proper amount of sleep, you wake up feeling sluggish and anything but energized. As a result, you move at a slower pace, you have very little focus, and you are more apt to have mood swings that get in the way of a productive day. Just like you tuck your children into bed at a certain time each night, do the same for yourself.
Ask for Help
Everyone needs help sometimes. For example, your meeting at work is running into overtime, so you can’t leave. Even so, you have children to pick up from after school activities. The easy solution is to contact one of the parents who also have a child in the same activity and ask them to pick your child up as well. Then, when the meeting is over, you can swing by their home to collect your child and head home.
As a mom and a full-time executive, your time is valuable. The good news is that there are many ways to save time across the board.
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