Effective Tips for Busy Working Parents

As many of you reading this will know I’m very much a working parent, my wee boy has just turned 3 and full of energy ALWAYS. Social media would tell you that I’m one busy man trying to juggle work, parenthood and a side hustle at the same time.

Is it easy? No but I wanted to share a couple of tricks that I have learned over the years to help manage.

*Now not for one second am I trying to say I have got this stuff sussed out because I really don’t and trying work through some issues I have with my daily and weekly plans.*

The biggest lesson from being a working parent is you need to plan (well in advance mostly). I have and still am struggling to plan I have tried loads of things to try help this however something as simple as using a calendar app on your phone can be such an easy to track what your doing, help plan your life out and gives good reminders as well. I now try my hardest to plan out every moment of my life so I can maximise the time I have with my family and make sure I’m not taking too much on.

Now following on from planning, being a working parent requires you to say no more often. When I was (much) younger I never said no to anything, it was always yes to every night out, yes to every opportunity that came my way. However, when you have a family at home you need to say no to more things and that is not a bad thing it just means you have to prioritise your time else where.

As an athlete as well as a dad and a full time worker, fitness is of course a key element to my life. So I always try to aim to get sessions in early morning or while I’m at work (I’m very lucky we have a gym on campus), this means you are not skipping sessions etc as well as not wasting precious family time. What I have found and seen on TikTok is if you are able to exercise around your child then they are more likely to want to exercise or copy what you doing so can be a real benefit for home workouts. Training when you have a child is different but if you have the dedication to your sport / discipline then it is so worth it.

The real big one is you need to keep your better half happy. Life is about balance and compromises however once the line has been crossed and your over committing to work or hobbies problems start to happen. I’m the world’s worst when it comes to this so if my wonderful partner is reading this I’m very sorry!! The best way to concur compromise is by communication. Talk to each other, be open and honest about what commitments you have, what upcoming plans are etc. Once you find the balance between everything that is going on in your life then not only will you be happy your family will be equally as happy.

In summary, the keys for balance are: