I have always believed everyone needs to understand how to manage their work and life in a world where there are no external boundaries separating the two.  But, as my ten-year old daughter is teaching me, we are never too young to learn how to make the choice between where to put our time so we don’t get overloaded.

When you hit fifth grade, all of a sudden, more time is being spent each morning on how you look.  More time brushing and putting up your hair, washing your face, making sure your outfit is “just right.”   All of which takes time.  

Unfortunately, I didn’t clue in to this need for additional time until early October.  Every morning we seemed to be consistently ten minutes later than usual getting out the door because my daughter wasn’t ready.  I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong:  Was I getting her up at the right time?  Yes.  Were we getting homework done in time?  Yes.  What was it?  

I started observing what was different about the mornings in fifth grade versus fourth grade. She was spending approximately ten additional minutes on her appearance.  

What to do?  I realized this was a teachable moment:  My daughter’s circumstances had changed—she wanted more time to get ready in the morning.  Therefore, she was going to have to rethink how she was going to manage her time in order to not be late getting out the door.  Her old fourth grade routine wasn’t working anymore.  

We talked about where those ten additional minutes she wanted would come from.  Would she get up ten minutes earlier, watch television ten minutes less, or maybe lay her clothes out the night before?  She thought it through, and decided to get dressed as soon as she woke up so she wouldn’t get caught wasting time at the last minute unhappy with her outfit.  

We are two weeks into trying this new routine.  We are only five minutes late getting out the door, which is better than ten, but we will keep rethinking the situation until we get it right.  In the process, she is learning how to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go when her circumstances change and she can no longer fit it all in.  

What about you?  Have you had opportunities to teach making good work and life choices to your children?