Hank McKinsey, on managing time for yourself and your family.
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Managing time as a man of the house has never been an easy task; it takes a lot of work and a little luck. Every man has had that feeling. The wife is mad because you want to spend some time with your guy friends or you feel guilty because you stayed out too long with them last weekend. It’s not just us though, our wives need time to themselves as well. There’s been points in my marriage where time was all we ever fought about, like it was some sort of rare commodity only few could understand. Well, it kind of is a rare commodity – especially when you have children and a full-time job.
After countless nights of bickering about who would do the dishes or put the kids to bed we decided, enough was enough. How many times can you get in a fight about the same thing before it becomes so overdone that it’s creating unnecessary stress on your relationship? Well for us, it was a lot, but we both hit our breaking point. We were annoyed and needed a solution.
We sat down and talked (never underestimate the power of communication!). What we found was interesting: we both felt like we needed some time for ourselves. We were inadvertently suffocating each other by not letting each other have time alone or time with our friends. Here’s a couple of simple tips that came from our conversation that have made a huge difference:
Trade off with the Kids.
This might seem self-explanatory, but we realized that we were always together when we weren’t at work. Not that that is a bad thing but we both realized we needed a second to get some time for ourselves. We talked about how on Saturday mornings before we had kids she would grab coffee with her girlfriends and I would usually write or read.
Once we had kids we both never had time to do either of those things and it became a constant time struggle as we worked to be great parents and keep each other happy. When we started to give each other some time to do things we wanted we realized my next point:
‘Me’ time is almost as important as ‘us’ time.
We work, we clean, we care for the kids, and we spend the small amount of extra free time we have nurturing our relationship. But when do we get us time? I love being outdoors and I’m always looking for unique ways to be outside. When you have small children you might feel like you don’t have time to go hiking or play sports with friends, but finding the time to do so (even if it’s with your one year old son strapped on your bag) is rewarding. This was what I was lacking.
Don’t get me wrong, continue to nurture and grow in your relationship – neglecting this will only lead to bigger problems in the future. You can still grow in your relationship and have some alone time. My wife and I talk a lot about the five languages of love and try to meet each other’s needs. She knows my main love language is an act of service. There’s nothing I appreciate more than finding that my wife has put the kids to bed and cleaned the kitchen before I can even lift a finger. She also provides me with time for myself by going the extra mile and making sure things around the house get done, which leads me to my next point:
Make lists and get them done.
You’ll find that by making lists and getting it done you free up a lot of excessive time. If you know the garage needs to be swept, your son needs to be picked up from baseball practice, and your daughter needs to go to ballet, make a mental list and check them off as you go. For me, I like to see things visually and we use our refrigerator as a resource for organization. Everyone lists their tasks there daily and we cross them off as we go. As the day goes on you’ll find yourself realizing that things weren’t as stressful as they seemed.
However you choose to manage your time, think about every aspect. Time affects us all equally and we only have so much of it – it is a rare commodity. The last recommendation I can offer is to slow down sometimes and relax, even when life feels overwhelming. There’s something serene about letting yourself slow things down and enjoy them. If you don’t, you’ll find that every day was the same as the last and that the days have turned into years. Don’t forget to enjoy the little things, it’s what truly matters in the end.
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Photo by: cmun_project / flickr
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The one that stands out for me is the “list.” Men are visual and accordingly, because we can’t see that we’re accomplishing things, we get irritated. Years ago when we bout our first “handy man special” 80 year old house, I would say that it took me less then a month before I was ready to burn the place down. Someone suggested starting an ongoing list of things that I needed to get done. The list included small things like replacing a light switch to larger jobs like stripping wall paper. Every time I completed a task I crossed it… Read more »