Your parents are requiring more and more time as they age. You’re working on having a new sort of relationship with your adult children. Your vacation is coming up and you haven’t quite figured out how to manage your business and still relax while away. Your business is at a key stage and you want to spend more time in it.

You’re overwhelmed by all of this change. You know it, but you don’t know what to do about it.

Your First Two Steps

1.  Rearrange your time and your work:

What do YOU want from the time you’re spending with parents/adult children? What do THEY want? These might be different, so think about this first.

How much time per week or month do your parents need? What percentage of your work time is this? Are there other ways to arrange their time to make it more convenient for you? Is there work you can take with you while you’re waiting on appointments? (Be careful of working too much while you’re with them; it’s also very nice to have this time together, so balance this carefully.) Are you possibly doing too much; it’s worth looking at it.

Get the idea here? Use this approach for your parents as well as for your adult children and the new relationship you want to have with them. Look at your time differently, and look at your work tasks differently. Reorganize to fit a new time commitment; don’t try to use the old ways to fit the new commitments you’ve made.

2.  Forget about the future for awhile.

Too much future thinking is overwhelming. And with these life changes happening, the overwhelm quotient is going to be higher.

The key question here is: What’s important to you now? That’s “now” versus “not now.” That’s the only decision, for now. That’s what to fill your calendar with.

Your vacation is in three weeks. Block time in the next few days to review the status of each project and client, even if this has to be done on personal time, because this helps you get away on vacation with a calmer mind.

Identify which steps/tasks have to be completed before vacation. Not completed projects, but steps or stages of the project. Don’t use vacation as a deadline to force yourself to complete more than is really necessary, just because it’s an easy deadline.

This is the “I can’t leave for vacation unless these are done” tasks. These are the truly important priorities. To keep the focus, mark these in some way that’s clear and obvious when you review your daily goals.

Block working sessions right on your calendar, so you know for sure that you’ve protect time for these priorities. Once this is done, step back for a minute; are you overcommitting at all? Is it possible? Remember that crises happen, so plan buffer time for people coming at you at the last minute, clients not realizing right away how long you’ll be gone and needing something before you’re out, and so forth. The puzzle of your time must have white space.

Changes interrupt our lives. Change is change, whether it’s a welcomed change or one foist upon you. Accept that things are changing; that’s a key first step. And then reorganize to work through it.

Guest Post Courtesy of 

Sue West
Certified Organizer Coach®
Certified Professional Organizer®
In Chronic Disorganization
ADHD Specialist
Do you have enough time for you? Enough time for what’s becoming more important to you? Sue’s clients do and because she’s an organizing coach, her approach is practical.

Her specialties are organizing through change, ADHD and time management. Her clients have called her: insightful, wise, inspiring, filled with hope, gentle yet productive. Sue works privately, by phone or in person and is also the author of Organize for A Fresh Start: Embrace Your Next Chapter in Life, a book about reorganizing your stuff, your home and your time to move onto your next chapter in life. Get to know Sue by signing up for her blog, visiting her on Facebook, or signing up for her newsletter.