Get more quality family time: do less!
Life is busier than ever and I'm especially good at saying "yes" to more things than I can fit into one day. One of life's fallacies is the idea that you can have it all - nobody really does. We each have to work out our own balance so that life feels good not just on reflection but in the every day moments. Take care of the little things and the big picture will start to work itself out.
When you don't have full time care of your children, you can't take their presence for granted - you oscillate between crazy busy doing it by yourself and then the house being a bit too quiet when they're gone. To make the most of the crazy, here's FIVE things I try to do less of so that I can get more quality time and enjoyment with my kids.
1. Use my phone less
Kids are hard to pry off their devices, but if we're honest - so are we! I don't want my children thinking it's more important to me to be virtually connected than present in their real world.
- check social media accounts at set times, not all the time
- leave work at work if you can
- park your devices before dinner
2. Speak less
Enough said really ... sometimes even I want to roll my eyes and escape! What are the values I want them to have? I have to model those values first:
- being calm
- choosing words carefully
- being gracious and able to turn the other cheek
3. Do less
The millennials will need to manage their work-life balance more then any generation before them. That means making choices and not doing / being everything. This year we have done a lot less and it's awesome - time to just "be".
- sometimes the answer is "we just can't fit it in this term"
- hang outs and sleepovers: it's nice that we can
- weekend rituals: ours is waffles :)
4. Prepare less food
There's so much focus on food these days that we are forgiven if we seem to think about it all the time! I've given up on feeling responsible for their adult palate - I just put healthy food in their way and hide the junk food in the top cupboard.
- lunchbox - just like when I was at school - back to the basics: sandwich, fruit, cheese, a biscuit (and it's pretty much the same - everyday!)
- easy dinner when we need to - easy to prepare and no dinner-table dramas
5. Stress less
All of the above makes #5 much easier to achieve. I am now primed to be zen-like because I'm not running around being frantic about Facebook, food or activities! Now we can work on being good citizens:
- tidying up mess and helping each other
- being on time (easier for some of us than others...)
- being spontaneous
Authors note: some weeks I manage to do none of the above. Instead I yell a lot, prepare less food - in a bad way - and drive around perpetually late and cursing Auckland traffic #keepingitreal
