How to Balance Work and Life

It is simple. Prioritize. Setting priority makes everything normal and balance. Working doesn’t mean mom’s work should invade mom’s personal life. Working mothers do feel pressures of their work, and sometimes other priorities are neglected. Balanced life should be a combination of work, family, friends and God.

My first priority is God. I believe every family must be God-centered. Second priority in life is my family. Third is my work. I can choose not to work in favor of my family. But then again, since God has given me blessings: a great family, a good health, a respectable job, why should I take all those things away?

I do not want to let go any work I have because working is me. Working is my outlet for being me, interacting and meeting people, socials and learning new things about everything. Honestly, when baby came, I had a problem of how will I be able to take care of myself. I felt like crazy when all I have to do during those maternity leave days was to take care of my baby. I do not own my time. I can only take a shower after baby has finished his milk and when asleep. I can eat when he is calm or asleep. BUT, I am a mother. I cannot bear to eat when my baby is hungry and crying. I couldn’t go and pamper myself when baby is alone and needs me to touch him. I do not like it when someone, other than I or my husband, pampers my baby or making my baby sleep. There are always options but mothers will always choose to be there with their babies. I am so in love with my baby the moment he was born.

When LA came, expenses increased. I chose another channel to add income to our little family in order to support baby’s expenses without sacrificing our monthly target savings. Honestly, I am still new in attaining financial independence and still a lot more to learn. So I try to read and research more. I have been a follower of forums with goal – financial independence. I read a lot of motivational books and eBooks. Since then, I make it a point always to save money and allot a percentage of income to every expense. I intend to shift gradually my part-time work into full time to be able to stay always with my baby. As long I reach my goal, I will then shift my career into full-time mompreneur.

How do I balance everything? During weekdays, in the morning, Mom takes care to LA, I prepare things for work including our lunches. During the day, I call home to check LA. After office, I work online for one to two hours. After dinner is family time, I play with LA, one to two hours, before I let him sleep. We would either play and read or play and watch DVD. Weekend is different. It is totally no office work or part-time gigs at all. Saturday is doing house chores, bonding with family, meeting friends and my date with JM. Sunday is still a family day and Lord’s Day. We would go watch DVDs, shop just the two of us. I, sometimes join him to his hobby activities (playing with his crawler, airsofting, buying cars for collection). I believe every Mommy has their own way of balancing work and life. Life is full of tiny bits of pieces that need proper timing.