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9 Work-Life Balance Tips for Busy Working Parents (Infographic) The only tip missing is to just breathe. It's going to be okay.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Wake up. Feed kids. Clean up. Drop them off at school. Clock in. Work hard. Pick up kids. Bang out after-school activities. Help with homework. Make dinner. Clean up. Put kids to bed. Fall down. Do it all again tomorrow. Rinse and repeat until they're off to college, cherishing every well-earned hug and kiss along the way.

It's a bittersweet grind, the full-time working parent juggling act. To survive with sanity intact, we harried, guilt-ridden moms and dads have to let go of one big thing: perfection. Even the best jugglers drop the ball once in a while. When you do and, trust me, you will -- like when you show up late (or not at all) for your son's violin recital because a client meeting went long or you're too exhausted to throw the ball out front with your daughter -- go easy on yourself. Skip the shame spiral. You're good enough, you're smart enough and, doggone it, you're doing the best you can to keep it all together and that's all you can do.

Related: Secrets to Being Both an Executive and a Mom

Keeping it all together isn't a willy nilly, fly-by-the-seat-your-pants deal, though. Corralling career and kids requires lots of flexible prep, an always changing plan of attack that includes certain carefully plotted strategic steps. (Do we sound like parents or what?) From meal planning to chore charting, to creating a family calendar to, yes, even scheduling some restorative downtime for yourself, you can minimize the inevitable stress and chaos that comes with trying to balance family and career.

Here are nine quick work-life balance tips to give you a lift, neatly bundled into the infographic below, care of the good folks of SerenataFlowers.com.

Click to Enlarge+
9 Work-Life Balance Tips for Busy Working Parents(Infographic)

Related: A Millennial Dad's Strategies to Thrive -- at Home and the Office

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here

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