13 Tips for Family Caregivers Who Also Work Full- or Part-Time Jobs

That, at least, is what Hodgson personally experienced when she was a family caregiver who also worked outside the home. Basically, you need to find someone who can listen to — and uniquely understand — your struggles. “That person can help you to get through the fog and the darkness,” she says.

The key is to agree ahead of time to keep all conversations confidential. These conversations can be had in person, on the phone, or even by email or text. Even then, says Hodgson, “you have to be a good listener too.”

Pat yourself on the back.

“Maybe this should be tip number one,” says Eastman, who thinks the most common shortcoming of working family caregivers is failing to acknowledge the miracles they perform on a daily — if not hourly — basis.

But she’s not just saying it metaphorically. “You should literally pat yourself on the back” at the end of each day, she says, and remind yourself out loud: “I’m doing a great job!”

Know your limits.

Imagine that we each must carry around a bucket with all of our social, emotional and physical needs wherever we go. If you are a working person who suddenly becomes a caregiver to a loved one, you initially don’t know the capacity of your own personal bucket, says Aaron Blight, author of When Caregiving Calls: Guidance As You Care for a Parent, Spouse, or Aging Relative.

“Caregiving introduces new things into your bucket,” says Blight, because so many critical responsibilities go hand in hand with it. “Things may get harder once you add caregiving, so you may need to take some other things out of your bucket,” he says.

In other words, he says, be mindful of when your emotional bucket is getting too full and take smart steps to prevent it from overflowing.

Talk to your boss about caregiving.

One of the greatest gifts to employed family caregivers is the option to work from home. Yet not all family caregivers are fully aware that this may be an option in their workplace, says Blight.

He suggests that all family caregivers consider speaking with their boss about their caregiving duties. “Good employers are sympathetic to the challenges of their employees,” says Blight. According to the 2020 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving report “Caregiving in the U.S.,” about 1 in 3 employed caregivers (who are not self-employed) say that their supervisor is unaware of their caregiving situation.

“We need to normalize this,” says Blight. “Caregiving will hit all of our lives at some point.”

Join a caregiver resource group.

Many larger employers in particular offer special “employee resource groups” (sometimes called ERGs) specifically for employees who are also family caregivers, says Blight. The programs often offer group meetings to discuss personal caregiving issues and outline any work programs that can assist caregivers on their journey.

They also allow “employees to become educated, receive support, and advocate internally for policies more supportive of family caregivers,” Blight says.

Evaluate all tech solutions.

For all of technology’s faults, says Blight, it certainly offers a new world of possibilities for caregivers who must also go into the workplace. That’s why it’s critical for all family caregivers to spend some time investigating technologies that might make their lives a bit easier.

For example, he says, there are rather simple technologies that can help a working person check on a family member 24/7. “This is the kind of thing where you can monitor someone from your desk at work,” he says.

There is also technology that a loved one can wear to alert you — or an emergency service — if they need immediate assistance.

Save time for yourself.

One of the most common mistakes made by working family caregivers is to stoically use up every minute of their paid time off to care for their loved one.

Please don’t, urges Kate Washington, author of Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America. “Save some for yourself,” she says.

She says that if you devote every minute of vacation time to your loved one, you have pretty much failed in the self-care category. So how can you be a good caregiver?

Outsource grunt work.

When Washington’s husband was very ill and she was his caregiver and also employed, she still found herself doing up to four loads of laundry every day. She put an immediate end to that by outsourcing the laundry so she could focus on the more important things that she could do for her husband.

By shipping it to a laundry service, she greatly relieved her stress. If you can’t afford a laundry service, she suggests, perhaps you can find a family member or friend willing to help. Ditto for other chores like housecleaning and yard work.

“Save your energy for parts of the role that demand your attention,” she says.

Assess your stressors.

Working caregivers need to stop and carefully assess all of their daily stressors. Ask yourself: What are the pain points you can control, and what are the ones you can’t? Once you are clear on what you can control, well, do something about it, Blight says.

For example, perhaps one of your stressors is a time commitment where you volunteer for a community organization and are in charge of secretarial duties for the group. This is an easy one: Stop volunteering — at least temporarily. If it’s not a priority in your life, says Blight, don’t do it.

Find your loved one’s joy button.

For time-pressed working caregivers, says Washington, “it’s easy to lose connection with those we are caring for.”

Maybe your loved one enjoys being taken outside to the garden or simply listening to you read a favorite book to them.

That’s why it’s critically important to regularly stop whatever you’re doing and find a way to reconnect with them in a human way, she says. “Think of them less as a patient and more as the person who you love.”