Strengthening family relationships when you have a hectic schedule

Families now are busier than ever. With hectic work schedules and other extracurricular activities, sometimes it can be difficult to keep your family a priority and strengthen your family relationships.
But neglecting your family for work can result in marital problems and compromised relationships with your children. But there are still plenty of ways to strengthen your family's relationships even if you have a hectic schedule.
The following are a few tips to help you make sure you are balancing your home business and family:

• Identify your priorities. The first step to making sure your family stays a priority even though your schedule is hectic is to actually identify your priorities. Make a list of what you think is important in life, and then work to divide your time accordingly.
• Eat together. Strive to eat as a family together at least one meal a day with no interruptions. This could be at breakfast before school, or in the evening at dinner. During this time, keep the TV, cell phones, and other devices off and focus on the family. This is a good time to catch up on each others days and the activities that are going on in your family's lives.
• Involve your family in daily tasks.Strengthen your family relationships by including them in your hectic schedule! For example, if you have to run errands, bring the kids. Or, spend a Saturday morning doing chores together as a family and then go out for ice cream together. If you work from home, set up a "desk" for your little ones to "work" with you too.
• Make a date night. Stay connected with your spouse even though you have a busy schedule by having a date night every week. Make it a must during the week, and don't answer any work-related phone calls. Focus on things other than work while you are on your date.
• Delegate your work. With some responsibilities, especially if you are in a management position or you have a business and you have a specific idea about how you want things done, it can be easy to take everything on yourself. However, this allows other important things, like your family, to take a back seat. If you have work you can delegate, do so. This will allow you to strengthen your family's relationships.
• Schedule alone time with your children. Another way you can make sure to strengthen your family relationships is to make sure you spend a little time alone with each of your children each day. This could be as simple as letting them help you with chores around the house or driving them to school each morning.
• Take care of yourself. In making sure your family stays a priority, it is also important that you take some time for yourself. A hectic schedule can be very stressful, so make sure you get enough sleep, exercise, and down time for yourself so that your family will actually enjoy your company when you're with them.

These days, most families have hectic schedules that make it easy for more important things, like family relationships, to take a back seat. However, neglecting to strengthen your family relationships will result in more serious problems later on. These are just a few things you can do to ensure you are strengthening your family's relationships.