Being a parent has always been a challenging role. There’s always a never-ending question of whys and how-to. Moreover, parents often feel stuck and unproductive managing everything all at once – from work to house and vice versa. However, it's not an issue of why you're feeling less productive but looking into how you are doing things. With the right approach, you can get things done efficiently! All you need are the right tools to help you get started.

Hilary Kinney is a project manager at a Fortune 500 company and a proud mother. Her 17 years of experience are placed in a book to help parents improve their family relationships. Today, she joins the podcast to talk more about the advantages of these frameworks through her book, Project Management for Parents. Specifically to engage the family, build teamwork, and succeed together.

When people hear project management, they worry that it's all processes and frameworks and spreadsheets. However, in both professional and personal life, you'd want to use the minimum amount of process needed to get more organized and the work done. And as a family, we're so busy. We don't want to do spreadsheets for the sake of spreadsheets. You need to just put processes in place that support your family so that you can get the stuff done that you need to get done and have more fun and quality time together. Because that's what it's all about - that time together as a family is important.

Another beauty of agile is that the people are involved. And that's so important with families and kids. You involve the kids in the process, talk with them, and get their ideas. You talk about the planning and start building those planning skills for them. By involving them in these conversations and principles, you're helping them develop these skills that will also serve them later in life.

In project management, we always manage projects to constraints, whereas in our personal lives, we tend to manage and max everything out. It would help if you thought about your limits (i.e., time, money, resources, efforts, etc.) and thought of them as a stop sign. There are certain things that every family has some capability of what they can get done. So, think through what those capabilities are - what you can and cannot do, and then sit down and talk about it in these different areas, be incredibly realistic about what you can't do, and then commit to it and put it on a piece of paper. Avoid getting overwhelmed like a water balloon bursting because it would strain your relationship with your family or result in health issues. And there are also resources you can add to help you with things. Like grocery delivery, to decrease that workload, so add those support systems. There are different ways to manage it, but be aware of your limits, and manage to those instead of unlimited time and resources. 

You can use a Kanban board at home if you want. It's a board that has "to do", "doing", and "done". And you can move sticky notes down the board. Like if your kids have different assignments, chores or homework. So you can visually see if they need help. You could do it on a whiteboard, on a bulletin board, on a chalkboard, or there are apps you can use that do this for you. You can go from simple to complex. And again, keep it as easy as possible. It is also important to keep in mind the age of your kids. Think about what works well for them and what's their learning style. Are they real tactile learners? Would they prefer to have a little mason jar of what their chores are for the day, and then when they're done, they move it to the completed mason jar? There are lots of fun ways to engage with the kids so they can see and understand it. And then there's a...