Okay, so this discussion has nothing to do with military service, but it has everything to do with providing service to those people closest to you on the daily/weekly. Today, I’ll do my best to relay a message that will probably touch all of our lives at some point in our journeys: the message of getting help to help family.
Wouldn’t you say the expectation of family members is to help one another when in need? Yeah, I do believe this one is a no-brainer. And undoubtedly, I count it a blessing and a high privilege to possess the capability to assist those I hold near and dear. But, what about those family members that don’t live under your roof — those you wouldn’t necessarily call your immediate household who you’re responsible for catering to on a regular basis?
Well, I say we still have a responsibility to be at attention and fully willing to be called upon for active duty when we’re needed. So, the productivity measures I’ll be suggesting will focus on those things you can implement to responsibly act on behalf of those family members (not of your immediate household) that need sporadic or fairly routine help from you.
You need to be able to juggle all of those calls for attention without becoming totally overwhelmed when you’re being tugged at in every possible direction. Unfortunately, it’s way too easy to experience negative effects from the stress that overwhelm can bring about. How can you lighten the load a little bit so it’s possible to help those inside and outside of your household as well as yourself?
Productivity Measures to Help You Help Others
Write Out Your Tasks
For the upcoming week, do your best to write out all the upcoming tasks, involving helping those outside of your household, that need to be completed for that week. (Of course, things will come up that you can’t anticipate ahead of time and you’ll need to build in flexibility measures to handle those times. But do the best you can to list out all the additional assistance you’ll need to provide to family members.)
Schedule Out Your Tasks
Once you list out those weekly tasks, determine if they’re to occur on a regular basis each week or if they’re sporadic events. If they’re recurring tasks, I would add them to my daily/weekly schedule. If they’re one-time events or events that’ll occur sporadically, I would just write or enter them in your manual or online calendar as reminders. (Check out my posts on creating a Schedule Board here and here.)
Get Help From Your Household
For those days and times that you’ll be regularly assisting those outside of your household, gather your family (inside the household) and determine what tasks they can assist you with so that you’re free to help others on those scheduled days and during those scheduled times determined.
Clearly and verbally communicate as well as manually map out everyone’s responsibilities for those days and make sure everyone’s on the same page and knows what to do and when to do it. I’ve utilized tools such as chores charts and dry erase boards (on the kitchen countertop) to provide helpful reminders to keep my family members on track. Making phone calls and texting people as reminders don’t hurt either, especially if you have some family that need an extra reminder on top of the original reminder.
In my case, Tuesdays and Thursdays are devoted to activities involving family outside of my household. On those days, I have enlisted my husband and adult children to assist with kitchen duties involving food preparation and dishes clean-up as well as picking up Little Man from the school bus stop. They know that I’ll be unavailable in the afternoons to early evenings on these days and will have to carry on and maintain household responsibilities without my presence.
Get Help From Outside Your Household
Find tasks that can be hired out and use shortcuts, where you can. What I mean here is don’t be ashamed to call in the troops when you need an extra hand or two from the Outside Forces. (My family is extremely busy during the weekdays. I have one child who works full-time, one child who goes to school full-time, one child who goes to school full-time and works part-time, my husband who holds down the external workforce front for the old fogies in the house, and then there’s me. I don’t work out in the external workforce these days, but I do work outside of the home on the regular; and believe me when I say that I’m probably busier now than when I worked for corporate.)
Because I may not always be able to get that “extra” help from my household because of their hectic schedules, that’s when I’ve learned to seek help outside of my own household, when needed. For example, Thursdays are my family’s eat out days; and when I say “eat out”, I mean that we pick up and bring home prepared food from our neighborhood natural/organic grocer or reputable restaurant that provides healthier food options for their clientele. Here’s where I enlist the reserves for the reserves.
Furthermore, I also know some people who’ve hired cleaning services to help with chores around the house that are just too difficult to get to or that take up too much time on a regular basis. Getting help with the cooking and cleaning can be big time-savers for you, because these are two activities that are non-stop and tend to be the most time-consuming.
Here’s my thing: pick the battles you have to fight yourself and let others help you fight the ones where you don’t have to go it alone.
When You Don’t Have Much Flexibility to Help
Let’s say you work in a full-time position where it’s difficult for you to help family or you don’t live in close proximity to where you can help family. What do you do in those instances? Well, do what is within reason to do?
In the examples above, there are limitations to the help that you can provide, but do what you can. Because you work full-time or don’t live in close proximity or both, you may have to co-share responsibilities with another family member or close family friend when helping family outside of the household. You provide assistance during your off-work hours and let the other family members/friends help during the times when you can’t be available.
If you have the financial means to do so, you might hire sitting services, home health care, courier and delivery services, or food prep and cleaning services to help family when you don’t have the time to devote to doing so.
And when you live far away, sometimes the best thing you can do for family is just visit with them long distance and let them know that you love them, you care, and that they’re thought of. Use the assistance of phone calls, cards and letters, face time, Skype — pick your personal means of connecting long distance with those you love and use those communicators regularly.
BONUS: Since I didn’t provide you with a Tip of the Week on Monday, I thought I’d include one here. And my goal with this tip is to answer the question: what can you do to prevent your energy sources from being depleted, because they’re being drained from all the competing responsibilities that vie for your attention?
Productivity Measures to Help You Help Yourself
- Consume healthy foods and drinks. Eat a healthy diet and remember that sugar doesn’t equate to providing you with sustained energy to keep you going for your overwhelming list of to-dos. And don’t forget to pour water into your system, because your body needs it to properly function.
- Get some physical activity (other than your to-do lists). Exercise to get a workout that challenges your body, not one that takes you to a higher level of exhaustion than you’re already on.
- Rest please! You have to get adequate sleep. There’s no use in thinking you can skimp on this productivity measure and think you’re going to get the most out of your days and feel the best while doing it.
- Pamper yourself from time to time. You’re not wrong for wanting to invest in your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. When you’re always giving of yourself to others, you have to put something back into YOU. Find your “chill” activity or reward and partake of it if it helps you to positively release stress and replenishes your well.
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