A Balancing Act: How to Juggle Parenthood and Your Career

Whether you're a single working parent or in a committed relationship, raising children while working full-time can be challenging. You want to spend time with your children without giving up the opportunity to advance your career, yet you often find yourself behind the eight ball.

Regardless of your current situation, if you are the primary caregiver, with the responsibility of child care while you work full-time outside of the home, you will likely encounter various obstacles. Here are five tips to help you balance your workload and children.

Develop Well-Honed Organization Skills

Balancing work and children requires you to be extremely organized with a detailed plan of how each day will unfold. Yes, you will need to be flexible and consistently maintain a backup plan in case of emergency, such as a sick child or an unexpected business trip. However, the average day will run much more smoothly if you and your child know what is expected in advance.

Actions, such as selecting your outfit the night before, placing books or important papers in easy-to-find locations, and other methods of planning ahead can help. You can make it fun by singing as you go through routine preparations or by using a picture board to mark off each step of your morning routine. You may even want to encourage your children to see who can get tasks done first.

Define Well-Established Priorities

Know what is important. You are not superwoman (or superman), and no one expects you to be all things to all people at all times. Realize that not everything needs to happen now. One way to cut yourself some slack is by establishing priorities. Choose to do only the tasks necessary for daily living and maintaining sanity. Everything else can be pushed to the backburner or be delegated to someone else to complete.

Keep in mind, if you feel panicky trying to get things done, your child will sense your anxiety, which is especially bad when you're trying to get out the front door in the morning. And, because anxiety is especially burdensome to children, your child will soon come to resist whatever causes your distress.

Find Another Mother

Regardless of your gender, taking care of young children while working full-time requires you to ask for help. Networking with other working parents, finding day care, or hiring a nanny - even encouraging participation from your partner - requires you to reach out.

Consider starting a group in your area where adults with or without children can get together to network and chat. For instance, one group, Boston's Saturday Club Playground, connects local working parents of younger children to form play groups. Or, check out Websites like Mommy Networking and Mommy Mentors to make connections.

Seek Out Great Employer Benefits

One of the most important things to employees - parents or not - is the type of benefits that their employer offers. For parents, it becomes even more important to have perks such as the opportunity to work from home -- even one or two days a week -- or having a flexible work schedule. Equally important is to find a supportive boss who understands and allows time off for pressing family needs.

Unfortunately, such family-friendly work environments are not always easy to come by. However, thanks to resources such as 85Broads.com and MomCorps.com, help is on the way. And, as you search for your dream job, be sure to note how many women the company employs at all levels.

Take Personal Time for Yourself

Sure, you've heard this one before, and maintain that it's simply not possible to take any more time for yourself. However, anyone who imagines that they cannot take 30 minutes out of their day - even if it's just breaking for lunch - does themselves and their child a disservice. Find quality time for you - and relish in it.

Remember, being a great parent is about being a great person. Striking the proper balance between your career and parenthood is key to enjoying success and fulfillment.