Making Time for the Whole Family

When I decided to make the change from work at the office to work at home, I expected to have a whole lot more time to spend with my family. I had envisioned day trips to the park with the kids, early afternoon movies with my honey and vacations where we would just pack up and leave on a whim, it seemed as though it would be so easy since I would no longer have a boss looking over my shoulder. The problem was I didn’t figure one aspect into the equation, myself.

Its something I have known for quite a while, I am a work-a-holic, I love working and once I get going it becomes very hard to pull me away from my project until its finished. I think I must have overlooked that or maybe thought I could change once I setup headquarters at home, but I didn’t. The reality is that I found myself working more hours than ever before, not because I had to but because I wanted to. I wanted to sit in front of this computer and type up articles, manage numerous websites and so on, I love it and thats why I do it to this day, but it was effecting my family and I couldn’t even see it.

I felt like it was a blessing for my family, I was home and they could see me or talk to me whenever they wanted, but I realized that I wasn’t really there, it was kind of a shell they were talking to. I mean sure I was sitting there, but I was so engrossed in the work that I couldn’t fully devote my attention to the conversation. It had got to the point where we would go out and I was always in a hurry to get home, I had to see if I missed anything important, maybe an email I was waiting on came through, or worse yet maybe one of sites were down and would often ruin the outing because I cut it short to be with my work. I hate to say it, but it was almost as if I were having an affair with the Internet.

It took me over a year to finally realize this myself, that even though I was technically spending time with my family, I really wasn’t spending time with them at all. Once I was able to see that I knew I had to make a change, but how do you stop doing something that you love? The easiest way is to think about which you love the most, because after a while you will have to choose one so it had better be the one you want. The one I wanted was my family, I love them with all of my heart, they are the reason I decided to work from home in the first place, to spend time with them.

The strange thing is, that even though I had began to sacrifice time from my work to spend with my loved ones, my business actually began to flourish, more so than it was before my insight. Now that I look back, I can see that sure I was spending 18 hours a day working, but most of the time I was so burnt out that the work just wasn’t good, it was hurting me more than doing good. So once I pulled away from the work a bit, I again was able to enjoy what I was doing with the added benefit of more free time to do what I really wanted to do.

The Moral of the Story

Whether you’re poor, rich, working or out of work you have to stop and realize what truly is number one in the grander scheme of things. You always have to put your family first, everything else can fall into place in a close second, but family has to come first. Once you put family first, everything else has this weird way of working itself out.

If you can do all of this, your life will be better, fuller and more enriched than it ever has been before, I promise. Just do what comes naturally and let your family know just how much you love them.

Tags: family, family time, Managing time, schedules, Time-Management, work, work at home, work from home

Time Management for Students - 11 Tips You Can Start Using Today

College can be tough, it’s easy to get distracted with parties, work and family life just to name a few. Managing your time effectively can be even more difficult, not just for students but anyone with a busy schedule. Here’s the great news, time management is actually pretty easy once you set your mind to it, and believe me, it will make life much easier, very quickly. So without further ado here are 11 effective strategies that will lead to better time management for students with a hectic schedule.

Tips to Better Time Management for Students:

Create a “to do” list - One of the best strategies you can use to stay on top of things is to create a list or schedule of everything that you need to do for that day. You can quickly put the list together the night before, including the classes you have, a set time for studying, any errands you may have and so on. Make sure to be as specific as possible and stick to it, once you go off the schedule you will begin losing precious time. If you don’t want to write everything down with old fashioned pen and paper there are some free online tools that you can turn to for help. All of these free tools will allow you to create simple to do lists right from your computer:

• Ta-Da Lists
• Todoist
• OrchestrateHQ
• Remember the Milk
• SproutLiner
• Task Freak
• Bla-Bla List

Use time on the bus or carpool to study - If you are riding the bus or carpooling and often find yourself twiddling your thumbs along the way, you are passing up valuable time that you could otherwise be using to catch up on your studies. Not only is this a great way to catch up, but it also helps to pass the time, unless of course you enjoy chatting with the very strange person sitting in the seat next to you.

Set specific times for studying and recreation - This is where that “to do” list above can come in real handy. If you are going to practice effective time management skills you have to set specific times for each activity. Listen, we all know that college can be fun, all of the parties, taping freshman to the menu at the Taco Bell drive through, and I don’t want you to miss out on any of that. But setting strict time lines to complete your work will actually allow for more time to play with the duct tape, and feed beer to the school mascot. More »

Tags: college schedule, college students, students, time management for students, time management tips, Time-Management