Keeping Your Schedule Under Control During Get Organized Month
January is Get Organized Month. This is a fantastic opportunity for you as a family caregiver. Organization is an important skill and a valuable tool to use when you are caring for your parent, especially if you are also caring for your children and managing other important aspects of life such as your marriage, your career, your household, your volunteer efforts, and hobbies. One way getting organized can help is by getting your schedule under control. Many family caregivers for elderly adults report feeling as though their schedule is chaotic or too busy, and they frequently feel as though they are not getting everything they need to get done done on a regular basis. This can be frustrating and cause you to miss important things. Getting your schedule under control allows you to make more of your time and also reduces your stress and anxiety.
Elderly Care in Grand Rapids MI: Keeping Your Schedule Under ControlSome ways you can keep your schedule under control during Get Organized Month include:
- Don’t just rely on the calendar in your mobile device to keep yourself organized. Instead, use a tool that is easy to see in the course of your day, such as a desk calendar or an agenda book. Using these requires you to look at the entire calendar and everything being scheduled at the same time so you can easily notice overbooking or conflicts, which is harder to see when using a mobile planning resource.
- Schedule in order of priority. Always put the most important things on the schedule first and then fill in with less and less important tasks until the days are full. This ensures if a particular day does become particularly busy, you know you have the most important things handled.
- Schedule time to yourself, with your partner, and with your children as top priority tasks. It is vital to have this time for your mental and emotional well-being, and the ongoing quality of your relationships. Scheduling this time as a top priority ensures you don’t leave it behind as you fill your schedule.
- Make sure you take into consideration basic life requirements when making the schedule for a particular day. Don’t try to fit in so much you forget about things like eating or driving from destination to destination.
- Find tasks that could be combined with others and make these combinations to save time and maximize efforts. This often also means having the chance to encourage your children and your parent to spend time together as you combine efforts for both of them.
- Find tasks you may be able to delegate to others, such as creating a carpool for school or afterschool activities, errands, or meetings with teachers that could be transferred to your partner.
- Make elderly care a part of your senior’s routine and entrust that care provider with tasks that open up your schedule as you need it to.
Simply because you have taken on the role of being a family caregiver for your aging parent does not mean you have to do everything by yourself. In fact, the challenges associated with caring for an elderly adult, particularly if you are also taking care of your children, maintaining a career, supporting your household, and fulfilling other obligations, can be overwhelming for just one person. Elderly care can be an invaluable source of support and assistance for you as your senior ages in place. An elderly home care services provider can step in to handle specific care tasks, offer companionship and support, and be there for your parent so they can live their best life while you also manage yours.
If you or someone you know needs help with elderly care in Grand Rapids, MI, contact Gauthier Family Home Care. We provide quality and affordable home care services in our community. Call us at (616) 258-2300 for more information.
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