Saturday, January 28, 2006

Thoughts on Life Balance, Life Planning, and Time Management for Caregivers

Life Balance is elusive. The concept is simple – everything important gets it fair share of time, energy, and resources. Theoretically, you can figure out what’s important, how much time, energy, and resources it should get, construct a plan, and follow it.

Most of the time our plans fail because of the interruptions – the unexpected and the unplanned. We tend to cram more into the plan than will fit to begin with, and then when the unexpected and the unplanned appear, the plan blows up. Life balance is gone, and time management is in disarray.

Caregiving is one of the big interruptions in life, and with it comes daily unexpected and unplanned opportunities.

Life Balance and Time Management become even more important for us as Caregivers, even when they’re seemingly harder to achieve. If we don’t pay attention to what’s important, we’re going to suffer consequences as caregivers, and likely so will the care receivers.


As in all things, Jesus is our model for how to live a life full of interruptions – the unexpected and the unplanned.
  • His life was full of interruptions: people wanting to be healed, people wanting to be taught, disciples needing explanations, people needing to be fed, children wanting attention, people wanting to discuss and argue, etc.

  • He treated each interruption as important and as an opportunity, as if the interruptions were what he was living for, as if responding to them was his true mission.

  • He was attentive and responsive to interruptions.

  • He treated interruptions as opportunities and challenges, not as threats.

  • He lived his life expecting interruptions. Some writers have suggested that God provides interruptions when He has something special for us to do.

So what can we do to get a handle on these issues?
  1. Be very realistic about what’s important and about what’s possible.
  2. Build a plan that incorporates what’s important, but only accounts for half the available time in order to be available to respond to interruptions.
  3. Expect interruptions, be attentive and responsive to them, and see them as opportunities and challenges.

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