Strategies for Exhausted Working Parents

Many working parents feel they're “running on empty.” Soldiering through the pandemic, juggling work-at-home and school-at-home, and now often returning to work in person has moms and dads juggling commitments and scrambling to stay on top of obligations.
 
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Daisy Dowling CEO of Workparent coaching, offers these tips to help counter that ground-down feeling: 

• Round-Up: To maintain a sense of forward momentum, make a list of everything you’ve accomplished at your job and for your family since March 2020.
• Close it Out: The human mind craves completion. Draw a label for each phase of the pandemic (e.g. the “I-Can’t-Believe-This” phase and the “Endless-Winter-Zoom-School” phase). Then draw a line through the ones in the past and create a new label for the one you're entering now.
• Identify your Point of Control: Whether it’s doing a daily crossword or a 5-minute exercise routine or grinding the perfect cup of coffee, celebrate something you do that gives you a feeling of engagement and pleasure.
• Future Anchor:  Picture something you would like to have in your life a year from now. What does that look like for you? Keeping it firmly in mind can help you cut through daily stresses.
• Give Your Career Some Attention:  Instead of just treading water at work, put some focus on your overall career trajectory. Set aside a small amount of time each week to, for example, reach out to a former colleague or peruse LinkedIn profiles of people you admire.
• Mentor Another Working Parent: When you generously share your talent, experience, and knowledge with other people, you immediately feel more confident and capable,

 
What has been your greatest pandemic parenting challenge and how are you dealing with it? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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