Are you living your life day to day, with seemingly no help from your family, stuck in a thankless job? Does a recent TV commercial depicting the "invisible mom" seem fitting to your situation? Do you feel like you've lost control of your life? That you have no time to yourself any more?

You're in the same boat as millions of women. In the old days, people living in big homes had a household staff and even a household manager to manage them. These days, whether you're a career mom or a stay-at-home mom, you're the household manager and staff in addition to whatever other duties you may have. How do you make time for nurturing yourself and your family? How can you improve quality of life?

You need to take back control of your life.

Marla Cilley a.k.a FlyLady, runs flylady.net, a popular destination for women all over who wish to take back control. She espouses the concept of a control journal, which is basically a place to track all the important things in life " such as your daily, weekly, and monthly routines and plans.

You can keep it anywhere " a notebook, diary, whatever. She even sells a spiral bound binder if you're into using paper tools. Or you can use a program such as the one my company, Mediabee, makes.

It is a powerful concept that you might find interesting " I certainly did.

Once you've listed all your routines, be sure to delegate responsibility. If you end up doing it all yourself, you'll forever be out of control, and over time you'll find it ends up disrupting your entire family's peace and harmony. Enlist your family members to help you with chores. You can start small and increase it over time.

"Easy to say", you say. "But I'm going to end up doing it all".

You're right. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to happen overnight.

To implement your plans successfully, you need to communicate that plan in a way that it will be received well. You don't want to end up being a nag. There are paper-based tools, like chore charts, that could help you, but, depending on your household, they may not be effective.

Again, some computer programs can be effective because they can help you set up a plan for each individual well in advance and automatically remind the appropriate family members on a regular basis. So you can get out of the business of micro-management (a.k.a nagging). Reach your family where they are " through the desktop, email, or even text messaging on their cell phones.

Once you have put the plan into action, give it some time to work. Success won't come overnight, but you'll be well on your way. Contact me if you have any questions.

2006 by Saro Saravanan.