If you’ve just found out that you have a loved one who’s having health issues, it can be hard to know how you can be there for them while also doing your job and furthering your career. Luckily, there are some principles that you can seek to implement that may make it easier for you to strike this balance and now see either area of your life suffer too badly.

To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for managing your career when dealing with a loved one’s health issues. 

Learn How To Best Prioritize Your Work Days

One thing that can make this balance easier for you to manage is to learn how to put all of your focus into the thing that you’re choosing to spend your time doing. For example, if you’re helping your loved one, focus completely on them and don’t let yourself get distracted with work, and vice versa.

Something that can make this easier in practice is to learn how to best prioritize your work days. While you might be someone who traditionally likes to procrastinate certain tasks, try to take control of your work and energy by getting the most vital work projects done first. This way, even if the rest of the day gets away from you, you’ll be able to breathe easier knowing that you got important work done and can relax more when you’re spending time with your loved one. 

Ask Your Boss About Flexibility Options

As soon as you find out that you’ll need to help with caring for a sick loved one, you should speak with your boss about what flexible work options might be available to you. 

In some instances, you might be able to work from home or take some time off to give your loved one the care they need. In other instances, you might just speak to your boss so that they know why you may need to call out from work occasionally. 

Seek Out All The Support You Can Get

Remaining at your full-time job and helping with the care of a sick loved one can be an incredibly hard balance to get right. 

To help you with this, you’ll want to seek out all of the support you can get. If you need someone to help give your loved one more constant care, moving them into a care facility might be necessary. If this isn’t the step you want to take, make sure you speak with your siblings or other loved ones about how you can all share the load of this responsibility so that everyone can still have some balance in their lives. 

If you have a loved one that you’re trying to care for while also working on your career, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in doing this.