As any working mother already knows, juggling a career and family can be quite a challenge. Aside from the obvious quality time that a mother spends with her child, parenthood comes with innumerable additional responsibilities including taking children to appointments and attending school functions.
As a working mother, you may find that your children’s activities cut into your workday. In addition, you may be having a hard time scheduling your own appointments around your work schedule -- after all, you can only take so much time off from your job. So what’s the best way to handle this problem? Here are some tips to help you make your appointments without compromising your workload:
-- Organize. Use your computer or a calendar to keep a running list of the yearly appointments you need to make for your family. Include annual physicals, appointments for vaccines, dental checkups, eye exams and visits to your gynecologist. By knowing ahead of time when these checkups are due, you won’t be hit with an unexpected reminder card and you can plan accordingly.
-- Try to find doctors and dentists that offer evening and weekend hours. Many practices recognize the need for flexible scheduling and offer evening and Saturday hours. If you find such a practice, try to schedule appointments for after work hours. Keep in mind, however, that evening and weekend hours usually fill up very quickly so you will need to schedule these appointments well ahead of time.
-- Find a doctor near your office. If you’re lucky enough to have appointments that are near your workplace, try to schedule them during your working hours and go to the appointment in lieu of your lunch break.
-- Try to schedule appointments for first thing in the morning. If you or your child is the first patient of the morning, your doctor won’t be behind schedule and you can get in and out much more quickly.
-- Schedule several appointments for the same day. Try to take one full day off from work to take care of annual visits and physicals. Schedule them for a day that your kids have off from school so you can take them to their appointments as well. After your appointments, schedule any follow up visits right then and there. This will save you from having to call-- and be put on hold by a busy reception desk-- later.
-- Do what you can the night before. Pack lunches, sign permission slips, and fill out medical paperwork ahead of time. This will give you less things to do on the morning of your appointment.
-- Leave a message on your company voicemail stating the hours that you will be away from your desk. Nothing is worse than being away from the office for a few hours, only to come back to a slew of voicemail messages. By stating the times that you will be away, you may discourage people from leaving messages, as they will know what time they can call you back.
-- Catch up at work by checking voicemail and e-mail from home. If you leave work early or take the entire day off, do some work from home by keeping up with your voicemail and e-mail. By listening to your voicemail messages and checking e-mail ahead of time, you will know what to expect when you go in the next day and you may even be able to respond back to the messages from home.
--Go in early or stay late the next day. If your workload is heavy, try to get up an hour earlier or stay late the next work day. You will be amazed at how much you can get done when the office is quiet.
--Ask for help! Finally, don’t attempt to be Superwoman and do it all. If juggling your home and work schedules prove to be too difficult, ask your spouse or a family member to help you out. Let them make dinner or do the grocery shopping while you go to your appointments. Ask a friend or neighbor to pick up your kids from their after school activities or drive them to appointments that you don’t need to be at. You can always return the favor when things aren’t as hectic in your life.
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