3 Valuable Lessons From My Corporate Career That Help Me Manage Life at Home
I have worked in IT for 8 years, mostly as a Product Owner. I love what I do, and I am constantly looking to learn and improve. Although there are a lot of aspects of the corporate world that I could do without, there are some lessons that have been very valuable. In fact, some of the key skills in the work world are useful no matter what you’re working on—home life included! So here are the 3 most important lessons from my corporate career that have also made me a better wife, mom, and homemaker.
3 Key Lessons I Learned From the Corporate World
1. You’re always constrained by your resources.
In the corporate world, you can only plan so much work in a year because you are limited by your budget and how many people work at your company.
The same thing is true in your home. You are only one person, and you are limited. Your family is limited. Different families may have different limits, but in the end everyone has limited time, money, and space.
In the current world that is so focused on hustle and more, I think it’s incredibly important to constantly remind yourself of your limits. Social media will easily make you believe that you need to do more or have more, but that’s not true. Ground yourself in the reality of your limits, and you will ultimately find more joy and more success.
Here are some past blog posts that explore the topic of each limit, and how I try to embrace those limits in my home.
- Time constraints: Time Blocking, Pt. 1 & Time Blocking, Pt. 2
- Money constraints: Decanting
- Space constraints: Decluttering
Be realistic about everything!
2. You need to prioritize.
Prioritization is a key activity for any company. And the better a company is at setting priorities, the more successful it will be.
This makes total sense given point #1. It is because we are limited that we must prioritize. We will run out of resources at some point, so it’s best that we do so on the things that matter the least.
So whether you’re working at home, out of the home, with kids, or without, constantly ask yourself this question: What’s important now?
When you’re organizing a space, what items are most important to access in the space? Those get to stay, and others should go.
When you’re planning your day, what tasks are the most important for supporting you and your family right now? Don’t get distracted by non-urgent tasks if you have urgent tasks that need to be done.
When you’re buying new stuff, how important is it for supporting your goals or improving your life? Always remind yourself that by buying a new item, you are giving up the opportunity to buy something else of similar value. By grounding yourself in your limits, it’s easier to prioritize the purchases that will have the greatest impact on your home and family.
If you don’t set priorities for yourself, someone else will do it for you. Make sure you’re using your resources on the things that matter to you.
3. Don’t allow scope creep.
“Scope creep” is a term used in the corporate world that means adding additional features beyond what was originally planned. This can happen quite easily! And it may seem relatively harmless on a small scale, but it becomes a problem when you consider the reality of your limits and priorities.
Think about it this way: You go to Target to buy some spring break clothes, hoping to spend no more than $100. As you walk around the store, you pick up a few items from the dollar section and then a few cute decorations from the new spring line. When you go to check out, the total is $200. This is scope creep.
Scope creep can truly become a problem when it comes to time management, because you can’t just squeeze a little bit of extra time out of a day. It’s 24 hours, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. So if you’re going about your day and letting little tasks creep in that you weren’t planning to do when you set your priorities for the day, you will run out of time and not get to your priorities.
Do your best to focus on your priorities. Because your resources are limited, every time you allow scope creep you are causing something else to suffer. It’s always fine to change your priorities, but do so consciously and not mindlessly.
So what’s important to you? And what’s important today? Figure out those priorities and ruthlessly eliminate everything else.
As I said above: If you don’t set priorities for yourself, someone else will do it for you. Make sure you’re using your resources on the things that matter to you.
