53: Balancing Work And Your Caregiver Responsibilities

In this episode, we dive into the topic of balancing work and caregiver responsibilities. 
Many individuals find themselves juggling the demands of their careers while also taking on the responsibilities of caregiving for a family member or loved one. This can be a challenging and overwhelming task, but with the right strategies and mindset, it is possible to find a healthy balance. 

We explore practical tips and insights on how to help listeners navigate this delicate balancing act.

Discover the content of this episode. Hit play!

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Transcript

00:01

Hey guys, how you doing today? Can I get you started with something to drink? Is your aging loved one home alone forgetting to take medicine or pay bills The Caregiver Cafe with Roz Jones has a menu of resources to serve your caregiver needs. As a caregiver. Roz understands your daily challenges. This podcast focuses on the unique and dynamic issues of caregiving.

00:24

Welcome back to the caregiver cafe. I'm Roz Jones. I'm your host. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about some of the strategies that you need when you're trying to balance work, and taking care of a loved one. So these are some of the practical tips and tools that I have put together, that I hope that will help you in your caregiver journey. 

One of the first strategies I want to talk about is to prioritize your time and energy. Prioritize your time and energy. This means focusing on the most important task, and delegating or letting go of less critical responsibilities. It also means setting realistic expectations for yourself, and recognize that you can't do everything on your own. Honey let me tell you something, I am the outsource queen, if, if I see I'm getting overwhelmed, and it didn't take much for me to recognize when I'm getting overwhelmed, I ask for help. If I'm wasting too much time on a project, or if I'm wasting too much time on a task, that means that I need help. If I'm sitting here with my hand and my head blowing, rolling my eyes, sucking my teeth, you know, staring at the computer screen trying to figure something out, I need help. I need help. 

So you need to recognize you need to prioritize when prioritize your time and figure out when you need to outsource and then also to when you do that, then your energy you have more time to focus on what's important on those important tasks. So another strategy you want to talk about is self-care. Everybody talks about self-care. I know I know, I know. 

My self-care for me, when taking a break, let me tell you some I love podcasting. And I love doing home health care. I love caregiving but now to even get out here and help more people on the airways, this is self-care. For me, this is a release for me. It allows me to help others on a bigger scale and to have a bigger impact to help people move and do something different. change their lives, give them tips. So practicing self-care is different for everybody. Taking a break, we talked about that meditation, exercising, prioritizing sleep, these sorts of things, and nutrition and hydrating, we talk about these things all the time. But everybody has a different way of self-care, just like I talked about. Podcasting is good for me, Honey, I love it. I love it and I love what I do. But when I can sit down here with this microphone, and get into this great studio, this is my way of doing self-care.

So in the comments, tell me what is your way of doing self-care as you try to  balance work and your caregiving responsibilities. Okay and so another thing number three is technology. Yes, technology is a wonderful thing. So I take great advantage of technology. As you see I'm here in the studio or if you're listening, I'm in the studio, Gary has a set of software. I love it. I love it. I love it. Technology. He has the lights, the cameras, the road caster, the right mics, he has everything he has all of my resources that I need in order for me to leverage the technology. So we need to do the same thing and caregiving, there are tools and apps out there on my website, CircleUp is a great app for you to be able to manage your loved ones daily care, as well as their care in the future, and to have the family in on the care. So you can put the family everybody on one app and everybody will know what type of care they're receiving when they're going to get the care and it's easy to manage. 

So that's a way of taking, taking advantage of technology. The next way of taking advantage of the technology is doing what's called virtual medical visits. Yes, they do that now. Remember how the doctor used to come out long time ago with the black bag and listen to your heart and all that one. Now what they do is they can do what's called the telehealth visits over zoom. In between your annual you're supposed to go in for actual for them to look at you eyeball to eyeball and do a physical examination. But after that you can ask for telehealth visits. After you do your annual request telehealth visits those those visits are really good because then that means that you don't have to get in the car you don't have to get in traffic. And you can reduce the amount of stress because a lot of times when you go to the doctor, what happens when they take your blood pressure or your blood pressure high? Well, yeah, I had to drive 20 miles I had to get up early in the morning. We didn't do all of this to get here. So that person is stressed. Yeah, your blood pressure is going to be high and and what you expect. 

But if you do when you do the telehealth, you will be surprised, you will be surprised how much lower the blood pressure is because they're in the comfort of their home. So that's how you can take advantage of technology to help you with you know, with keeping up with the visits, also to with looking you know, the doctor also to with your family, as well. 

So there are a lot of resources out there different apps, like I said, once again, Circle Up we'll make sure we put that down in the show notes. And then finally, finally, finally, when you are trying to balance the work and caregiving responsibilities we talked about in a previous episode, talking with your employer, letting them know, I'm here to work, and I can work. And being an A lot of times you'd be surprised that a person who is a caregiver is more productive than a person who's not a caregiver, because they are able to multitask, they are able to understand, okay, this task has to be done, I have to, you know, delegate this task, this task has to be done in a certain type of deadline. So a lot of times caregivers are better employers. A lot of times caregivers are better employees. 

So I also want to give you you know, some data, you know, you know, I'm big on data. Now, according to a national report by the National Alliance for Caregiving, caregivers who prioritize self care, and maintain a strong support system are more likely to experience better health outcomes, and work outcomes and lower levels of stress. I just talked about that. You are more productive, you are more productive. As a caregiver, you are more valuable to your employer, because you have that extra skill of being able to manage another person and to be able to manage work. Okay, so I just wanted to put that out there. And I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the caregiver cafe. And until next time, I hope to I can't even get my tongue straight. Let me say that again. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the caregiver cafe where we talked about the strategies for balancing work and caregiving responsibilities. 

I'm Roz Jones, and take care and look forward to talking to you the next time on The Caregiver Cafe podcast.

07:45

Until your next visit to the Caregiver Cafe connect with Roz on YouTube, LinkedIn and her blog at the caregivercafe. net. Caregiver Cafe podcast specializes in serving those who provide care and support to a sick or aging loved one. I'm the voice guy, but I'm one of you. So when Roz has on experts or frontline workers, I'm listening. We hope you've enjoyed the show. In the meantime, don't forget to connect with Roz on YouTube, LinkedIn or at the blog at the caregivercafe.net