Sunday 28 March 2010

Motherhood: work/life balance

Today, I'm digging this article from the Times online about the modern woman's dilema of getting that work/life/parenting etc balance right.

They've captured some advice from different 'experts' such as the one below, what do you think?

THE HIGH-ACHIEVER

Julia Hobsbawm, founder of the media and networking business Editorial Intelligence, and author of The See-saw: 100 Ideas for Work-life Balance. She has three children and two stepchildren, aged 5 to 20

I was hospitalised with pneumonia in 2007, when my youngest child was two and my business was very young. It was the proverbial wake-up call — I nearly died and realised I had to change my life to survive. I discovered that if I apply business tactics to my home life, I’d probably be 25% more productive in 25% less time. Multitasking is important. I’ll listen to a podcast when I’m washing up, and catch up on phone calls when I’m walking somewhere. A rigid routine is unrealistic — you need to go with the flow, but you need anchored points, like Sunday lunch and film night, for stability. I also try to have “quick quality time” with my children — one-to-one time with them is essential, and an hour spent meaningfully with a child is worth a whole day spent resentfully, or only half there. Pausing to reflect is essential to avoid muddy thinking — I have a daily bit of me time, even for 15 minutes: maybe a soak or a massage, but it has to be a total switch-off. And we have pyjama days at home. I make sure we have at least half a day when the family does nothing. It’s lovely.

www.timesonline.co.uk
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