Q&A: Delegation & Focus Strategies for Families

Q.

"TL/DR: in search of unique focus strategies above and beyond/in addition to block schedules and timers.

[...]

For background: I have 3 kids, including one with special needs, all three go to different schools and one who is a working actor so auditions and set days take a lot of coordination plus I work from home so I've always had a lot on my plate. But right now in addition to all that I have started a new career which does not pay much in this early stage (I am a talent manager so I get paid when my clients get paid and I'm still in the roster building phase), so I still have to work my hourly from home job simultaneously. Plus my husband went down to part time this year for mental health reasons so I have picked up a weekend job and an on-call job to help make up the difference. My son's career has gotten way busier in the last few months so I spend about 30 hours a week driving to and from LA between his auditions and bookings and my weekend job. We are in the process of trying to move to LA so that we can be closer to all 3 of our work, so that means extra time trying to find and apply for apartments plus more driving back and forth. And the move means a huge downsize so I'm trying to find time to go through our things and get rid of what we don't need/can't take and to pack, as well as coordinate the school transition with an IEP and moving all of my son's services to new providers. I feel like there is never enough time in the day, but even in the time I do have, I feel so much anxiety over everything on my plate that I have such a hard time focusing on whichever task I am pursuing at the moment so everything ends up taking 5 times as long. Once we move and are settled, not only will all of the moving logistics be off of my plate but I will get like a full day's worth of time back at my disposal due to eliminating so much driving, and things will go back to normal amounts of chaos, but in the meantime I need to still make it to that point without going completely crazy or losing a job! Sorry for the super long post, I just need help and I'm hoping someone here has some advice that will help above and beyond timers, which I'm usually a big fan of but just aren't cutting it lately!"

~Christianna

A.

can you find someone else to drive your son who isn’t you? Like a rideshare service? Or carpool with others? Or public transportation & then rideshare the rest of the way?

There’s also ppl. who organize stuff who might be able to come help you pack things.

Even if you move, you might want to consider looking into getting an au pair, which would be a factor in the # of rooms you get in your new place. Care.com , sittercity.com , taskrabbit.com.

The au pair could also drive your son to all those auditions, thus freeing up your time to be with your other child & to do the other things you need to do.

For your other child, might be worth checking with your insurance or your child’s social worker to see if a PCA is covered who can help, &/or if there’s possible respite caregiver relief/help that can assist.

If you move, you could also slowly transition your other child’s medical team to ones who are closer, as opposed to doing the transition all at once.

Ones who may be geographically closer to your new place may still be just as far away, time-wise, to get to since it’s LA, (but at least you’d be doing the reverse commute for medical appointments), so it might not be worth it to transition medical team yet, anyway, especially if their medical appointments are infrequent (read: less frequent than the daily stuff your actor son needs to respond to, in person, in LA).

If your child’s medical team works well for them, they may be worth keeping around longer, as opposed to only shifting for sporadic and unpredictable auditions that occur for your other child.

If your other child gets a longer job that requires moving further away for a season, like to NYC, etc. or on location somewhere not nearby, does it make sense to change everything else in your life that is right now gig-based, or that can always end at a moment’s notice due to cancellation?

It’s so great that you’re such an active and engaged member and provider for your family. You clearly care about them very much & want the best for them.

Something worth considering and reflecting on is what are you actively doing that’s helping you & your life goals & purpose?

There will come a day when your actor son will no longer be dependent on you....he could move away for a gig or long-term role, you could acquire some additional caregiving help, &/or he just grows up to an adult. What will you do then?

Some people have a much harder time with life transitions (ex: retirement) if so much of their lives and identify was wrapped up in and dependent on something they never truly had control over (specifically, whether or not someone hires you & continues to give you a living wage paycheck).

Maybe not immediately, but it is worth building up the relationships outside of your immediate family with your community around you and in the neighborhood you settle in, because those meaningful & geographically-close relationships are likely going to be some of the most resilient and will help sustain you in challenging times such as these (& any related to chaotic work income) & will helps shoulder those burdens and weather those storms.

Support groups, especially for those who may have similar needs as your other child & their caregivers, as well as forming relationships with the other families you keep seeing on auditions, may help, since they’re the ones most relevant to your location and life situations and probably are the best clued-in to additional local resources that actually make sense for you and are most likely to be accessible.

An au pair can also help with other ADLs, and help with family cooking/food prep, etc.

Maybe break scenarios down into levels. A lot of what you’re talking about with everything all at once sounds like the ultimate number of levels (apartment search, pack, physically move, transition medical team, go to auditions, etc. & in an ideal world, they’d all be done fast & as soon as possible, etc.). Sounds like a lot of pressure. If you can, give yourself grace & the gift of a longer timeline to make the full transition, meaning make that transition in stages, like move first.

Perhaps it’s worth considering storing things first, before selling.

If you’re going to make a significant downsize, especially to a rental apartment whose rent will likely go up each year, you may end up finding out that the size just doesn’t work for your family &/or lifestyle (what if your actor son decides he just doesn’t want to do it anymore?), or that the area or neighborhood isn’t the right fit for you all (perhaps you settled for first available even if the space wasn’t that great of a size for what your family actually needs) & you may want to move elsewhere in/around LA than wherever you first end up.

If there’s the possibility that you’ll end up back in a bigger spot within a couple of years down the road, it’s prob worth keeping your things, maybe in storage, so that you can get them back, otherwise to repurchase comparable later will very likely cost you more due to inflation.

Storage space, while expensive, may cost less and be more effective than the price difference for additional square footage in larger apartments.

If you could afford the additional square footage in the more expensive city location where you could have all the things that already work for your family, would you? If the answer is yes, that’s prob something important to keep in mind.

Depending on what your family’s income is, it may also be worth looking into affordable housing programs.

They have them, even for rental units, and they also have ADA-accessible units.

Affordable units are sometimes a way where you can afford to get a larger unit, size-wise, or in a desirable urban location, for sub-market rate rent/mortgage. The ones that are rentals would likely require annual income verification to make sure you still qualify, but the ones that are purchase to own aren’t necessarily the case.

Affordable housing can be tricky to find, and they usually only post when lotteries come up or when someone chooses to sell their unit/home and they’re restricted to selling to someone else in a similar income % category.

That type of transition definitely wouldn’t be something you would likely find immediately, but it’s prob one of the best shots you might have at finding something size-wise that works for your family, in a closer geographic location to your works, and a price-point you may be more comfortable with.

You prob want to keep your stuff in storage for at least 6 months, or better yet, a full year AFTER you move, to assess if all those changes are going to be a lasting good fit, and then if the changes seem like they’ll realistically work for your family long-term, then you can sell the things in storage if you find you truly didn’t need them. It’s also usually cheaper to store things outside of major cities than in them.

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