How to Juggle Multiple Responsibilities as a Family Caregiver

Elderly Care in Allentown NJ

Do you find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place with your schedule more often than you’d like? Odds are very good that you’re juggling way more than a few responsibilities and they’re catching up with you.

Be Realistic with Yourself and Anyone Else Involved

The first step in successfully juggling multiple responsibilities is to be realistic, both with yourself and with the other people in your life. If your life now is so crazy that you’re not able to keep up, then adding to your responsibilities isn’t going to really happen. When you can give up certain responsibilities or at least cut back, you can make room for other things in your life. This isn’t always easy, of course, and you might be thinking that there isn’t anything that you can cut back on. For most family caregivers, that means personal time is the first thing to go.

Learn How to Say No

One way that you can start to cut back on your responsibilities is to avoid saying yes to every opportunity or situation that comes your way. Chairing a PTA committee is probably going to take up a lot of your time, so it’s one opportunity that might be easy to say no to. Some other situations might be more difficult to decide. Start approaching everything with a two-prong determination quiz. First, do you have to do whatever is being asked of you? If yes, then it’s non-negotiable. Next, ask yourself if you want to do whatever is being asked of you. If the answer is no, you can say no without feeling guilty about your answer.

Develop a Solid Routine

If you can get yourself into a solid routine, you may find that you really do have enough time for the things that are on your plate right now. You may need to rearrange some of them, but you may not have to give anything up. Block out the times and days that aren’t negotiable and then start filling in the rest of your schedule with the tasks that have more of a fluid time requirement.

Don’t Forget Yourself

While you’re looking at your routine, you cannot forget time for yourself. This is actually non-negotiable. Stress can move to burnout really quickly and if you don’t ensure that you have time for self-care, you’re going to get to burnout even more rapidly. Even if you have to slip time for yourself into smaller time slots than you would like, make it happen.

Hiring an experienced elderly care provider can help you to work out the seemingly insurmountable conflicts in your schedule.

If you or an aging loved one are considering elderly care in Allentown, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Alpine Home Care. In PA call 888-743-0068 . In NJ call (855) 410-1404.