Mastering the Triple Challenge: Thriving as a Caregiver, Professional, and Individual
Balancing your job and caregiving for an older loved one and taking care of yourself is challenging. While it's a path filled with love and responsibility, it usually includes overwhelming emotions and challenges for you and your family.
You are not alone if you are a caregiver for an older parent. As of the most recent estimates, there are approximately 53 million unpaid family caregivers in the United States. When a loved one has no advance plan, loved ones must step in; what else can you do?
Balancing the needs of your loved one with your needs and your family's needs is hard to juggle. Yet, with the right strategies and a mindful approach, you can find harmony between your professional ambitions, the caregiving duties that honor your loved ones, and your own personal well-being.
By embracing some common-sense practices, you can create a life that doesn't just juggle these demands but weaves them together into a fulfilling, meaningful experience where you are present and thriving in every role you play. At the same time, you can start thinking about how you can begin planning for your future needs without placing the burden of caregiving on your children decades from now.
Here are a few hints to make caregiving easier for you and your loved ones:
Cultivating a Heart of Gratitude
Starting a gratitude journal to write down the things you're grateful for can be a transformative practice. It helps you appreciate the small joys in life, fostering a positive outlook even in challenging times. This habit encourages openness to life's possibilities, enhancing your ability to enjoy the present moment. Gratitude not only shifts your perspective but also opens your heart to the beauty of everyday life.
Embracing Technological Solutions for Organization
Digitizing your essential documents is a savvy way to stay organized, ensuring that important files are always accessible and secure. With mobile scanning apps, you can easily store and share digital documents, eliminating the need for bulky physical storage and reducing clutter in your space.
For example, if you are caring for your mom, you can digitize and organize all her critical information, including medication lists, dosages, doctor contact details, and other essential data.
This secures her information and makes it easier for you to manage and access these documents whenever needed, ensuring that you have everything at your fingertips during medical appointments or emergencies.
Additionally, if you want to make changes to a scanned document, you can use optical character recognition (OCR) to convert your document into a fully editable PDF. With OCR, you can extract text, tables, and images for easy data accessibility, enhancing your ability to manage and utilize information efficiently.
Technology can be a valuable ally, helping you save time as a caregiver and potentially giving you more moments for yourself. By leveraging digital tools and apps, you can streamline caregiving tasks, stay organized, and free up time to focus on your own well-being.
Here are a few devices and apps that can help streamline caregiving tasks and free up time for yourself:
1. Medisafe
- Function: A medication management app that helps you keep track of your loved one's medication schedules, dosages, and reminders. It also provides notifications when it's time to take or refill medication.
- Benefit: Reduces the risk of missed doses and helps you easily manage multiple medications.
2. CareZone
- Function: This app allows you to store and manage health information, track medications, record symptoms, and share updates with family members.
- Benefit: Simplifies the organization of important health information in one secure place, making it easy to access and share with healthcare providers.
3. eCare21
- Function: A comprehensive caregiving app that tracks health metrics like heart rate, glucose levels, and activity. It also allows caregivers to monitor these metrics remotely and set medication reminders.
- Benefit: Offers real-time monitoring and care coordination, helping caregivers stay connected and informed.
4. Google Calendar
- Function: A widely used calendar app that can be shared with others to coordinate appointments, medication schedules, and caregiving tasks.
- Benefit: Keeps everyone on the same page and ensures no appointments or important tasks are missed.
5. Echo Show
- Function: A smart display device that uses Alexa to provide hands-free assistance. Caregivers can use it for video calls, reminders, and even home automation tasks.
- Benefit: Facilitates communication, remote monitoring, and offers convenience in managing daily tasks.
6. PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy
- Function: A service that packages medications by dose and delivers them to your door. It integrates with a mobile app for easy management.
- Benefit: Simplifies medication management by organizing pills into packets labeled by date and time, reducing the chance of errors.
These tools and apps can help you manage caregiving tasks more efficiently, giving you more time to focus on your own well-being.
Proactive Planning for a Smooth Journey
Starting a caregiving journey without careful planning can make the experience more challenging for both you and your loved one. To make things easier on the care recipient and lighten the load for you as a caregiver, engaging in comprehensive planning that covers all aspects of care is crucial.
For example, setting up legal documents like a durable power of attorney or a living will ensure your loved one's wishes are respected and give you the authority to make decisions on their behalf when needed. This reduces uncertainty and ensures that critical decisions are made smoothly without unnecessary delays.
Financial planning is another key aspect. By organizing your loved one's finances, including setting up automatic bill payments or consolidating accounts, you simplify money management and reduce the risk of financial strain.
If your loved one has Long-Term Care Insurance, be sure to use the benefits to help provide some of the care. Even a small policy can add additional professional caregivers into the mix, such as respite care, adult day care, and more.
Get help with the paperwork in filing the LTC Insurance claim here - Filing a Long-Term Care Insurance Claim.
Celebrating Every Step Forward
Recognizing every success, no matter how small, is essential for maintaining morale and motivation. These victories—whether they're breakthroughs in caregiving tasks or small wins in your personal or professional life—are milestones worth celebrating. They remind you of your strengths and resilience, helping you stay motivated on your journey.
By acknowledging these achievements, you're lifting your spirits and reinforcing your confidence in managing the complexities of caregiving and other responsibilities.
Keeping Your Career Ambitions Alive
You still deserve a fulfilling life, and while caregiving demands significant time and energy, it's important to keep your career goals in focus. Exploring flexible work arrangements can help you maintain the balance needed to manage your caregiving responsibilities without sacrificing your professional growth.
These arrangements might mean negotiating telecommuting options or adjusting your work hours to better align with caregiving tasks. By prioritizing both your career and caregiving duties, you can continue to pursue your ambitions while providing the care your loved one needs.
Keeping your career aspirations in focus ensures that you continue to progress professionally, even as you navigate the complexities of caregiving.
Fostering Connections for Support and Solace
Maintaining strong relationships with friends, family, and/or a support group is vital for mental and emotional well-being. These connections offer a lifeline during challenging times, alleviating feelings of isolation and providing much-needed emotional support.
Prioritizing social engagements and nurturing these bonds can offer respite and rejuvenation, enabling you to return to your caregiving duties with renewed energy and a positive outlook.
The Power of Assertive Refusal
Mastering the art of saying "no" is a powerful tool in managing your energies and resources. Politely but firmly declining non-essential requests frees you to concentrate on the most important responsibilities. This assertiveness is key to maintaining balance and ensuring that you can devote your best efforts to caregiving, your career, and personal pursuits.
Balancing the complexities of caregiving with your career and personal goals is no easy task. However, you can create a balanced and fulfilling life by celebrating your achievements, planning for the future, practicing gratitude, leveraging technology, maintaining a focus on your career, nurturing relationships, setting boundaries, and learning to say no when necessary.
Now, Don't Put this Burden on Your Loved Ones
The caregiving journey demands patience, resilience, and a strong commitment to self-care, but what happens when you grow older and require help with daily activities or supervision due to dementia?
The reality is that you are likely to need long-term care, and it's essential to consider what you've done to ease this transition for those you love.
One crucial step is to discuss aging with your loved ones and include a Long-Term Care Insurance policy in your retirement plan. As you've likely realized, even a small policy can significantly reduce the stress and burden that would otherwise fall on your family.
While many people purchase an LTC policy in their 40s or 50s, affordable options are still available in your 60s and beyond, depending on your health. This proactive approach can help ensure you receive the care you need while protecting your loved ones from financial strain.