The book was about balancing your home life with your work life if you work at home with lots of advice on how to do it. There were short and easy to read chapters which included:
Chapter One—My Story of Finding Balance {And Some Practical Starter Ideas}
Chapter Two—How Your Work Benefits from You Being at Home
Chapter Three—How My Kids Benefit from My Work-at-Home-Ness
Chapter Four—What Does God Have In Mind When He Selects and Shapes a Person?
Chapter Five—Working and Serving from Your Core
Chapter Six—Becoming the Architect of Your Own Schedule
Chapter Seven—Successful {Not Stressful} Family Living
Chapter Eight—I Can’t Tell You How Many Times a Week I'm Asked, “How Do You Do It All?”
Chapter Nine—Being a Mom and Following Your God-Given Dreams . . . I Give You Permission
Chapter Ten—The Freedom of Knowing Yourself
Chapter Eleven—Balance Isn't the Ultimate Goal—Knowing God Is
How can a work-at-home mom raise kids, juggle a career and take care of family responsibilities with only 24-hour days? Working at home while raising kids and juggling a career and family responsibilities is no easy feat. Author and homeschooling mom Tricia Goyer shares her tips for finding balance among all your many hats as a mom. Balancing is a process and a journey, one that Tricia herself has yet to perfect. But between writing more than forty books, raising and homeschooling six kids, being a wife, and being active in her community, she has amassed valuable tips she shares in Balanced.
The book includes tips on:
-how to create focus themes for your family
-how to prioritize your schedule
-how to utilize your job so it also benefits your kids
-how to keep yourself out of the comparison game
-how to make working at home work for you and much more!
With a description like that don't all mom's have to read this book? I decided that I would get this book because I used to work at home even though I am not working now (mostly) but hope to again soon if I can figure out how to balance it. When I worked at home before my son, if I didn't get work done during the day, I could just pick it up and work long into the night. After having my son, I have to make sure that I have time for both my work and my son. I also didn't have the flexibility to work all night long because I knew that I would be up early in the morning with my son ready to play. It is always a balance to figure out how our lives work.
The problem that I had working from home is that people didn't respect that I was working. There were often interruptions during my work day (especially from my parents). It is very hard to set up boundaries while you are still in the same place because other people don't see the difference in the location so they don't think that you are working. It is also hard to stop worrying about doing the dishes and laundry while finishing work instead. It is much easier to ignore those things if you are in the office and the dirty clothes are at home. There is always guilt about what you are not doing and the book talked about how you had to set priorities of what you were going to have time to do that day and not worry about the other things because they could be your priority on another day. The author's suggestion is to have office hours where you don't let anything interrupt you and make sure you have a flexible schedule based on what other things you have going on in the day.
The most valuable part of the book was the last few pages which gives a list of 38 different things that you can do to make the balance better from using the crock pot to making list and setting goals. I thought that it was a little bit to general up until that point in the book. There were some ideas like putting post it notes by areas that you are in case you get any ideas but the rest of it was putting the ideas in God's hands. While I believe in God, I don't think that God is making decisions for us everyday but that we should make good decisions to be the best person that we can be. There were too many quotes from the Bible and other locations and not enough of the authors actual thoughts for me to gain the best way to work towards balance but overall, I am glad that I read the book.
If you want to check out Tricia Goyer's website, you can find it here. She writes many different types of books and there is information about them on her website. There is also a post about this book here.
Tricia is hosting the Balanced Challenge. RSVP for the Balanced Facebook Party on March 10th and learn more about the challenge.
If you want to get more into each chapter, the challenge is the perfect way to do it. Each challenge is a different day and a different chapter. You can read the chapter and then blog (or facebook post) about the challenge. The challenge starts on March 11th with the first challenge listed below:
March 11: Family Priorities (Chapter One)
Determine what your priorities as a family are. Ask yourself a few questions: What do we want to achieve as a family? What will matter five years from now—ten years from now? What will mold our children into God-serving adults? What will bring peace—not stress—to our home?
If you are interested in this topic, I hope that you check out all of these different links and get involved in this very interactive book through reading and all the different sources. It is a step above just a book and allows lots of different accountability. Are you a work at home mom and want to learn how to better balance your life? Check out this e-book and see how you can quickly improve your life.
*I was provided this book free electronically for my review but my opinions are my own.
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