10 ways for parental work-life balance 

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Pursuing a career and managing a family can be challenging. Here are the top 10 approaches I will be sharing on how to juggle the two as a parent.  

1. Plan (over the weekend) 

The adage says, “failing to plan is planning to fail”. Each Sunday evening for approximately 15 minutes or so, I tend to plan out my week at a very high-level sketch. As I have a joint calendar with my wife the plan for the week will generally include things like the following: 

• Gym time  
• Important meetings at work 
• When I need to go into the office, as my role is hybrid. 
• Key work deadlines 
• Any birthdays, functions or anniversaries for friends and loved ones 
• Nursery runs 
• Baby appointments 

It’s very likely that there may be additional tasks that creep up during the week (particular at work). Nevertheless, planning for the week gives me the confidence to take on what lies ahead and gives me lead time to mentally prepare for any challenges I may face during the week.  

“Proper preparation, makes perfect performance”

  

2. Discuss with your line manager: 

It would be good professional practice to have regular (weekly) catchups with your line manager, to discuss the following: 

• Your current workload 
• Your deliverables 
• How you are feeling 
• Any current challenges 
• Any concerns about your role or the company 
• Future aspirations 

You and your manager can work together to devise a plan that may help you meet your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual deliverables. Preferably without compromising your sanity and mental health in the process of meeting these objectives. Which is partly what work life balance is about. As they say “teamwork, makes the dream work”.  

If you are aspiring to be in or are currently performing a managerial or leadership role, it would also be good practice to initiate these weekly catchups with your direct reports for the reasons above. 

3. Set a working from home schedule 

Subject to your agreements with your line manager. I’ve managed to agree on the fixed days I work from home, which I have put in my colleagues’ Outlook calendars. This is so: 

• They are all aware  
• I’m being transparent 
• They can plan around me  

As per the first point on planning, this fixed working from home schedule allows me to do certain activities such as: 

• Doing the nursery runs:  Which I love! And I think is priceless! 
• Attend the gym at lunch time. (Provided I don’t have any meetings on or around that time) 

Another perk to this (working from home) is that I can afford to wake up at least an hour later!  😊  

4. The day is for the kids and the night is for the parents 

My wife and I discovered that the children want our full and undivided attention. As a result, we agreed to exclusively focus on them during the day until we put them to sleep (usually around 7pm).  

During the evening, my wife and I tend to wind down, catch up and reflect on our respective days in peace without being interrupted or distracted by the kids!  

This helps us remind ourselves that we are also husband and wife as there’s a tendency to easily get fixated in being mum and dad mode.  

5. Date Nights 

In addition to the above point my wife and I tend to have date nights once a month. It’s an incentive for us to work hard during the month and something to look forward to. It’s something we use to do on a weekly basis before we had children.  

We believe it’s a good way to maintain and rekindle our romance for each other. We get to show the kids that mum and dad need ‘their time’ too! 

6. Limit the distraction 

I’m not good at multitasking, nor can I deal with distractions. I find that when I focus on one thing at a time, I get a better output and I’m more productive.  

During working hours especially when I’m busy, I tend to put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ to avoid any potential distractions. I’ll only allow my favourites (my family) to contact me during this period, in the case of any emergencies. 

I’ll allocate a few minutes to go through any notifications that I may have missed and respond to messages preferably during lunch time. 

According to studies people touch their smart phones on average over 2,600 times a day!!! In some extreme cases which I’ve done before, if my wife and I are working from home I’ll simply hand over my phone to her to hide! 

This way I have no choice but to crack on my work and focus for a sustained period. I was inspired by this idea from James Clears’ book ‘Atomic Habits’ chapter ‘Motivation is overrated; Environment Often Matters More’ 

 “Whenever possible, avoid mixing the context of one habit with another, when you start mixing context, you’ll start mixing habits” 

7. Childcare 

This for me is probably one of the most important factors for having a good work life balance. 

The few main childcare options are the following: 

• Nursery 
• Living Nanny
• Family support 

One may choose any of the above subject to their affordability. 

Knowing that the children are taken care of enables me to focus on work and worry less about their well-being during the day. 

8. Consider doing compressed Hours 

The concept of this is simply put: You work the total contractual hours over less days. So, for example, if your contracted weekly hours are 40 hours. Rather than working 8 hours a day across a 5-day working week, you can perhaps agree with your line manager to work 10 hours across a 4-day week. 

Some companies offer what they call ‘summer hours’. The concept is that during the summer period, you have the option to work an additional hour between Monday and Thursday allowing you to get a half day on Fridays. 

Obviously, it boils down to whether you have the tenacity to work the additional hours during the day. However, just imagine what you could do with an extra free day!! You can use that to pursue any side projects etc. 

9. Consider doing Part Time 

This is essentially working less hours and with that comes less pay. Subject to affordability, this option will be suitable for parents who may wish to stay at home with their children and save on the childcare costs, particularly nursery being potentially the most expensive.  

With the less pay, parents will have to ensure they can sustain their day-to-day costs.  

One option is if one parent is the ‘bread winner’ and they pretty much can cover their household bills and overheads, perhaps the other parent may choose to opt for a part time role to spend more time with the children.  

10. Chill Out  

All work and no play is no good! You owe it to yourselves to relax and take a breather from time to time. 

Chasing a career can be taxing on your energy levels, now add raising a family to that!  

This for me is key and gives me the time as a parent to recharge my batteries. There are obviously multiple ways in which one can chill out be it: 

• Frequent holidays 
• Dropping off the kids to their grandparents over the weekend (This is my favourite😊)   
• Or any other option that enables you to take your mind off work and/or parenting  

Final Thoughts 

Obviously, assess your personal situation. Not all the above points may be relevant to you, nevertheless, I do believe that a handful of them can be of use to a happier work- life balance.  

K.