These effective tips on how to balance work and family are written from the perspective of a two parent household or a household with children that are old enough to take on some of the basic chore responsibilities around the home. Most of the tips can be adapted to meet a single parent's agenda.

1. Part of learning how to balance work and family means learning how to delegate chores and successfully divide the household chores up in a fair and equal manner. Everyone who lives in the house is responsible for its cleanliness.
    
2. Delegate work responsibilities as well so that you are less likely to be called on during your time off. When your staff or team knows how to handle stress it reflects more time back at you.
    
3. Two parent households are also responsible for caring for the children on an equal level. When one parent checks out of the parenting role it leaves all the really hard work left on the shoulders of the other parent. Sometimes a parent opts out because he or she isn't trusted to parent the "right way" and sometimes they check out because it's easier to let someone else handle behavioral issues. Two parent households need two active parents in order for both parents to balance work and family life.
    
4. Life is loaded with choices. Some of those choices pit balancing work and family against each other. Sometimes you have to choose to stay late at work, pick up the over time, or devote your evening hours to a project. Most often the motivation is money. Knowing that absolutely nothing comes before your family means that you will carefully consider what you are giving up for the evening versus how much that time is actually worth.
    
5. By making your family's fun and play time one of your highest priorities, right under their health and general happiness, you will see that finding a true work-family life balance is priceless and a bigger house or a newer car isn't going to change how your family feels about their time to together.
    
6. Maintaining a sense of equality within a partnership or marriage can help you both learn how to balance work and family. Financial influence, access, and stability should not be dependant upon contribution. One of you is simply bound to make more than the other.
    
7. Additionally, the ability to make decisions together in a reasonable and realistic manner helps ease the family life and creates a partnership that is actively working. All couples who are working on balancing work and family need to not only make sure that they make their couple--hood a priority in their life but also support and value the career and family oriented goals of each partner.
    
8. At the same time, couples who set firm boundaries with their superiors regarding how much of time will realistically be set aside for career have a much healthier work-family life balance.
    
9. Emotional intimacy with a partner can help you achieve career goals much faster and with fewer distractions.
    
10. Setting time limits at work can help you streamline your work efforts, get more done during the work day, and alleviate the pressure you feel when trying to attain more than reasonable expectations.
     
11. If you literally hate your job you are going to have a harder time finding that ability to balance work and family life. While at work you have to maintain strong focus to keep your hours reasonable and dreading your day is just going to encourage your mind to wander to your family, their day, and soon you'll find yourself sneaking in phone calls to lift your spirits. It is important for both partners to feel that sense of pride that a paycheck provides as well as a sense of pride that their partner's paycheck provides.
     
12. It is also important to enjoy how you earn that paycheck. While you might not have your dream job an enjoyable circumstance help you attain better balance simply because it helps you manage stress better.
     
13. While we often make lists reminding us what we need to get done, we rarely make lists of what we need to avoid. Working out a list of tasks to avoid because they are time and energy wasters help us stay focused and on productive tasks.
     
14. Alternatively, make a list of your favorite off-work activities and make sure that you maintain those that involve both family time and alone time.
     
15. The work-family life balance often calls for financial sacrifice. It means valuing the time you get to spend together and doing fun things together that are free or cost very little instead of dedicating your life to buying the house you can't really afford that is way too big for your family anyway.
     
16. Live in a simple fashion that doesn't rely on high levels of basic "stuff" that doesn't enhance your life together.
     
17. Developing the sense of "family first" you have no problem putting time with your partner or your child's school play ahead of overtime or even a new position with more responsibility and pay.
     
18. Relieve your home phone and cell phone of twenty four hour duty. Work calls at home should be banned or limited to absolute emergencies. Bringing work into the home via the phone can turn into a constant distraction.
     
19. Keeping major decisions open to discussion makes maintaining balancing work and family efforts easier. This helps alleviate one partner shouldering the majority of the work load and keeps everyone involved in the family life.
     
20. For all the strategies that you can implement to learn how to balance work and family the most important is to become ferocious mother lion-like when it comes to protecting and developing the time with the family. Set your family time goals and stick to them.
     
21. If you are looking to balance out your life then it is quite likely that you already sacrificed either the job performance or the family time. Almost everyone sacrifices the family time because they fear the consequences of standing up for their right to work reasonable and productive hours. Family is not an element that can readily withstand a lot of sacrifice. Keeping a reminder of the importance of family at work can help you retain your decision making abilities.
     
22. Discovering new options available to you can help you reschedule your work hours. Whether you need a different shift, job sharing, or telecommuting, letting your superiors know that these changes are vital to you can help make them happen.
     
23. Family revolves around love and nurturing. Devoting yourself fully to developing balance, work and family can become separate yet enjoyable experiences that receive your full attention when appropriate.
     
24. Relieve yourself of working guilt, get a job you like, and become a ferocious protector of your valuable time away from work.
     
25. Allow pampering time and self time to care for you. This is a valuable step that is often overlooked in exchange for spending more time together or being more productive at work, but the opposite theory applies. Taking care of you takes care of everything else.