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Family time is important, however it is often easier said than done. Life certainly gets in the way of prioritising this highly valued aspect of our lives.

Work schedules, additional commitments, household responsibilities and your own personal needs commonly get in the way of quality time together as family.

It’s important to set aside special time together as a family once a week. Scheduling this time is important for strengthening your family relationship and here are just a few ways to make that happen.

 1. Happiness

Sharing happy times together, laughing, joking and being affectionate builds trust and reminds us that family life isn’t all stress and responsibilities. Having happy times together shows us exactly why we love our endearing family.

2. Memories

The day-to-day monotony of life as a family can quickly blur into a seamless schedule of organising children and keeping up with the rat race. Making time together once a week to share a special activity creates meaningful memories. These moments together form significant family foundations to carry with you and your family throughout your life that will be reflected upon for years to come.

Spring is the perfect time to add fitness to your routine. Between work, running a household, kids and everything else in between, your fitness routine may be described as jumping over or picking up toys, vacuuming twice a day. That was certainly the case for me, but since I have set a fitness plan in place, fitness has now become my own personal ‘me time’. Its time away from the family, work and all I do is focus on myself. I started off by walking once a week; now exercise three times - Zumba class, Yoga and now Saturday morning boot camp.

Before you start planning an exercise schedule, I would recommend you set some achievable goals. For instance, exercising once or twice a week. You could also include the fitness level you want to achieve, or outfit you have always wanted to wear. I always find it easier to exercise when I have a goal in mind.

What do all successful organisations, corporations, and even educational institutions have in common? No, not an oversized budget, though that can certainly help as well. The answer is—they all have a mission statement—a concise and straightforward vision of just exactly what they hope to accomplish and how they plan to do it.

So, if this strategy works for large groups of people committed to achieving the same goal, then what’s stopping it from working for your family? Absolutely nothing except for maybe a lack of motivation or the time to commit to the project. Once you realize how important and potentially transforming family mission statements can be, however, you shouldn’t have much trouble scrounging up these resources in the interest of your family. Here are some general guidelines to get you started:

Most people have heard of attention deficit disorder, but there is a new disorder on the block called nature deficit disorder. If you are the parent of a young child, especially a boy, then you need to read on and tell me what you think - is outdoor play vitally important?

Nature deficit disorder is a by product of the technology age in which we live and the very real disconnection that many young children have with nature these days. I know that many of my childhood memories consist of climbing trees, zooming down makeshift flying foxes, investigating the creek at the back of my house riding my bike until I was forced to come in and rolling down grass hills. Unfortunately, few children these days are forming the same memories, and this is a very real problem.

Disconnection to the outdoors has been shown to impair academic and developmental growth. It also leads to an increase in attention deficit disorder, obesity, anxiety and depression in children. So your instincts that children should be spending less time inside watching TV or playing computer games is spot on.

Whether you are a working mum, a stay at home mum or a combination of the two – Monday to Friday tends to be more head down, bottom up survival than family fun time. During the week the family home is often a maelstrom of activity getting everyone organised for school, work, after school activities, homework, dinner and bed time. When it comes to the weekend, it is time to take a deep breathe and focus on family fun time.

During my time as a working mum, I have learned to covet the weekend as precious time to catch up with my family and really have fun together and form family traditions and fond memories. The balance that I have struck with my own family is one that I actually pinched from my South American friends. In many South American families, Friday and Saturday are times when kids can arrange play dates with friends and mums and dads can enjoy social outings too, but Sunday is a whole different story. Sunday is family day and that is that: no ifs, buts or distractions.