As an executive coach who specializes in working with high-performing women, I've closely watched how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting women's careers. 

In both news reports and conversations with clients and other leaders, I'm hearing that professional women disproportionately handle the added domestic work (like managing kids' online learning) caused by the pandemic. As a result, some have decided to leave the workforce while others are approaching burnout as they try to juggle it all. Those who remain in the workforce face the added challenge of making their accomplishments more visible in a virtual environment.

As the pandemic continues, it poses a threat to the gains women have made in the workplace during recent years, especially in pay and promotions.

What can you do to protect your career amid these difficult circumstances? Let’s start by talking about how to manage things on the home front, to keep you showing up at your best personally and professionally. In my next article, I’ll share what strategic self-promotion can look like in today’s environment.

Managing It All

Even in normal times, women take on a greater share of responsibilities at home than their male partners do. Women spend more time on childcare and housework, and are more likely to interrupt their careers to care for a family member. The pandemic has only exacerbated that situation, especially with so many women working from home.

So how can women shift to a more sustainable way of working and living? It all starts with the strategic pauses that I recommended in a past article. During one of those essential pauses, answer these key questions:

• What does the full picture of your life look like right now? Getting a clearer picture will help you notice what is and isn’t working. How chained are you to your phone and computer, especially if you’re not commuting to an office anymore? How much do you work in the evenings or on weekends? How big is your role in your kids' schooling? How many added responsibilities, like grocery shopping or taking care of elderly parents, are you managing? How much time do you allocate to people and activities that energize you?  And, even more importantly, how is all of this affecting you — your sleep, diet, exercise, stress level, and how you’re showing up with colleagues and loved ones? 

• What do you want life to look like? Be really specific. What do you really want for yourself? For example, you may want to carve out 30 minutes to an hour of time just for you each day to recharge or unwind. Or to have quality time with your family from 6-8 every weeknight without any work distractions. Or to get help with the most time-consuming tasks that eat into your personal time. Or to reduce the high volume of email, instant messages and texts from your team so that you have time to focus on priorities.

• What needs to change? Once you’ve defined the picture of what you want, it should lead to conversations about how to make it happen. At work, it could mean helping others understand how your schedule works, arming your team with the strategic questions they should ask themselves before they fire off a request to you or delegating in ways that develop your team. Or it could be about resetting expectations about reasonable turnaround times on requests.

At home, identify some simple changes you can make. Sit down with your spouse or partner and other family members to manage and more equitably share the domestic workload. For example, ordering out a little more often could mean that both of you have some evenings where you don’t have to cook – and that you can reinvest the time in something else that matters to you. Online grocery shopping may make it easier to delegate grocery shopping to someone else in the family. Remember to add some fun in there for all of you together, like doing something active outside (to get more exercise and quality time). Get creative.

If some of the changes you’re contemplating bump up against your high standards for yourself, remember that time is a finite resource. Saying “yes” to doing something means saying “no” to doing something else. Over the course of a week, freeing up just 15-30 minutes each day could mean gaining a few hours for bigger priorities, so be intentional about your choices.

Small steps can lead to big results, so let’s get started. Take five minutes right now to clarify two or three things what you want for yourself and one action you will take this week to move in that direction. You can find more strategies like these in "Staying in the Driver's Seat," one of the booklets in my Leadership EDGE Series℠.