How well do you know your family? I mean, really.
Do you truly understand where each family member
is coming from? What they’re thinking when you’re
talking to them? What are their motivations and
desires, and how they’re going to inflict chaos
on that institution that you’d like to call
“Home Sweet Home”?

If all is well with your family and you’re happy
with the way things are going, you probably do.
If things are not going so well, and you maybe
sometimes thought that your family was getting
a little bit dysfunctional, then you need to go
back to the drawing board and reconfigure your
thinking on each family member.

In business, they teach you that to motivate a team
to achieve a common goal, you must first present a
vision and get everyone to buy into that vision.
Then you need to continually remind them of that
vision in a way that inspires them to help you
to achieve it.

What’s your vision for your family? What does
“Home Sweet Home” mean to you? Have you ever
discussed this with your family? The vision
needs to be a common one that everyone can
agree to.

Clearly, each individual in the family has his
or her own vision of what utopia is to them.
Timmy’s thinking Xbox 24×7 and no schoolwork.
Katy’s teen crush and Manga books consume her.
Joe’s a die-hard sports fan and beer-drinker.
And Mary’s happy if she can have some time
to herself after she’s managed to put
healthy food on the table after
coming home from a long day’s work at her real job.

To achieve a balance and make everyone happy,
each must understand what the other’s
end goal is. Together as a family, resolve
to make that end goal possible for each family
member (as long as it is legal and healthy).

Start the dialog today and continue
the dialog for a few weeks. You’re sure to
notice the difference!

© 2006 by Saro Saravanan.

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Are you living your life day to day, with seemingly
no help from your family, stuck in a thankless job?
Does a recent TV commercial depicting the
“invisible mom” seem fitting to your situation?
Do you feel like you’ve lost control of your life?
That you have no time to yourself any more?

You’re in the same boat as millions of women.
In the old days, people living in big homes had
a household staff and even a household manager
to manage them. These days, whether you’re a career mom
or a stay-at-home mom, you’re the household
manager and staff in addition to whatever
other duties you may have. How do you make time
for nurturing yourself and your family? How can
you improve quality of life?

You need to take back control of your life.

Marla Cilley a.k.a FlyLady, runs flylady.net,
a popular destination for women all over who
wish to take back control. She espouses the
concept of a control journal, which is
basically a place to track all the important
things in life — such as your daily, weekly,
and monthly routines and plans.

You can keep it anywhere — a notebook, diary,
whatever. She even sells a spiral bound binder if
you’re into using paper tools. Or you can use a
program such as the one my company, Mediabee, makes.

It is a powerful concept that you might find interesting —
I certainly did.

Once you’ve listed all your routines, be sure to
delegate responsibility. If you end up doing
it all yourself, you’ll forever be out of control,
and over time you’ll find it ends up disrupting
your entire family’s peace and harmony. Enlist your
family members to help you with chores. You can
start small and increase it over time.

“Easy to say”, you say. “But I’m going to end up
doing it all”.

You’re right. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s
not going to happen overnight.

To implement your plans successfully, you need to
communicate that plan in a way that it will
be received well. You don’t want to end up being
a nag. There are paper-based tools, like chore charts,
that could help you, but, depending on your household,
they may not be effective.

Again, some computer programs can be effective
because they can help you set up a plan for each
individual well in advance and automatically remind
the appropriate family members on a regular basis.
So you can get out of the business of micro-management
(a.k.a nagging). Reach your family where they are
— through the desktop, email, or even text
messaging on their cell phones.

Once you have put the plan into action, give it
some time to work. Success won’t come overnight,
but you’ll be well on your way. Contact me if you
have any questions.

© 2006 by Saro Saravanan.

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