My mother isn’t at a point where she needs me to physically care for her yet, but she still needs my support in a variety of ways. Not only am I grateful for the opportunity to return the favors she did for me my entire life, but I’m one of many people who are in the sandwich generation — that is, people who have both young children and also aging parents who need our help.
According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of sandwich-generation caregivers range in age from 40 to 59. Now that women have children at an older age — I had both of my children in my 40s, and they are both still in single digits — and we typically live longer than we used to, there are millions of people whose care is needed, to some degree, by both their children and their parents.
Add to this work schedules, spousal needs, financial responsibilities, personal health issues, and home administrative duties, and this hectic mish-mash could result in, at minimum, regular panic attacks, or worse, in a complete mental breakdown. But with a few good time management techniques in place from folks who’ve been there (and that are confirmed by research to work), you might get through it all alive.
Check Completed Items Off The List
“I wouldn’t be able to function without my lists,” Amy Lobbs, a 59-year-old mother of two and caregiver to an elderly mother confided in me. “I have lists for my lists.”
Lists are paramount for getting anything done, as most of the world knows, caregiving for two generations, included. Apps like Asana.com or Google Calendar and Google Notes help caregivers create lists that can be monitored virtually across devices, printed, updated, shared, and more. “Asana is my everything,” sandwich generation mom Karen Wills, a 37-year-old mom of two and Pennsylvania-based real estate agent, shared with me over the phone. “You can still check items off, which I love,” she explained. Creating and updating to-do lists not only helps to organize time across family needs, but allows for visualizing work that still needs to be done, and opportunities for multitasking.
Science says: Physically checking items off of a list gives a mini boost of dopamine to our brains. In other words, we are more likely to complete tasks if we can reward ourselves with that check mark. Plus, studies show that completing work substantially contributes to personal happiness.
Create SMART Goals
“SMART” goals aren’t just well-thought-out tasks — SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. “I try not to bite off more than I can chew,” mom Christine L., a soccer coach and mom of two from New York explained. Christine sets herself up for success by setting SMART goals. “Each task on my list is micro-focused and not too vague; it factors into what needs to be done in the week, it can be quantified, and I know I’ll be able to complete it in the time I need it to be done by.”
Science says: Setting goals of any kind, including SMART goals, is linked with higher motivation, higher self-confidence, and higher self-esteem.
Build a Team
This may seem obvious, and it may seem tricky because many of us sandwich caregivers feel as though we have no one to hand things off to, but that is far from the truth. Passing work onto others is necessary for our own well-being. In addition to our partners, and even our young children (I have my 7-year-old feeding the cat, setting the table for dinner, and tidying up his own play area), we have many whom we can rely on. Neighbors, doctors, pharmacists, paid assistants, online services like Fiverr or TaskRabbit, extended family members, and others can and should take on some of the duties sandwich caregivers are swimming in.
“I add anyone to my team who I can,” Shana Lee, mother of three and caregiver to her elderly parents in California shared. “I pass insurance calls onto the doctor’s office, laundry to the babysitter, meeting my kids off the bus to my next-door neighbor, the list goes on and on.”
A trick to having a big team is remembering to be gracious and show appreciation, which in addition to regular verbal and thank you notes, and “paying it forward” as she describes it, Shana does annually for the members of her team. “My Christmas cards and gifts list is long, and it’s worth it.”
Science says: According to a University of Pennsylvania study, teams are often able to get tasks accomplished more quickly than one individual, as well as generate more solutions.
Be Honest
Finally, look at your to-do list and honestly assess — did anyone ask you to take this item on, or did you take it on because you feel obligated to rescue someone? In the case of our parents, this is delicate. They’ve done so much for us, and it feels only fair that we repay this favor. But there’s only so much one person can do. So, be honest with yourself. Are you doing more than you physically can, or so much that it’s affecting your own mental health and well-being? If so, it might be time to take a step back and find a better solution than taking on too much.
Being a caregiver to our own kids as well as to our aging parents is truly a big challenge. But if we are able to manage time efficiently, it is not only a huge gift to our aging loved ones, but also a gift to ourselves — of happiness, satisfaction, higher motivation, confidence, self-esteem, and the ability to accomplish tasks more efficiently.
Maybe most importantly, it’s a gift to our children of compassion and organization, as they endlessly watch and learn from us.
