Tag: planning

Who is in your family?

Benjamin (39), Christina (39), Zachary (6), Abigail (3)

Are you planners or do you go with the flow?
We are planners. Going with the flow is quite stressful for us.

What does your normal week look like?

Well before Covid-19 our normal week was very full. We both work every week day, Zach has school and Abby has day care. In addition we try to fit in extra curricular activities and Ben is at soccer training at least three nights a week.

Weekends are then full of grocery shopping, house chores,squeezing in some rest, birthday parties / socialising, church, getting ready for the week ahead and a soccer game for Ben that generally takes up a whole day.

You are now embarking on an exciting project outside of work, that takes up a lot of time, how do you make that work for yourselves and the whole family?

We are currently developing an app, which is exciting. I knew I couldn’t do it myself so I have employed the services of an app development company. Ben and I have worked through the specifications for the app after the kids have gone to bed. I am the one that has all the interaction with the software company and reads all the documentation. Then I sit down with Ben and explain it to him and get his input into the design and features. We also like to talk about it randomly while we are out and I will take notes on my phone. When we have a version to test I know Zach will be excited to participate in testing.We have made sure that this project doesn’t impact much on family life and as such we are taking it a bit slower and only doing it when we have time.

What advice would you give to a family working through the family blueprint, designing the family life you want?

Our family needs to do this too, so first step would be to recognise that you need to do this! We don’t have a blueprint written down but we do have agreement on some things that we adhere to and these have come about from good communication and purposeful planning. Things like taking regular holidays, living on a budget, keeping the kids active, involving our kids in Christian communities, ensuring our kids see us giving our time and resources to help those in need and to help the church. All these things take planning and sacrifice. Our lives are very busy so we have made some very conscious changes this year that is helping a lot: