Twelve practical questions to ask yourself, with a calendar and a pen

Count the hours before you decide anything

Almost everyone in this position is wrong about their own hours, usually by about half. Not because they exaggerate, but because the counting stops at the visible tasks and misses the driving, the phone calls, the ordering, the twenty minutes on hold, and the Sunday spent on paperwork.

Keep a log for two weeks. Not a diary — a table. Four columns: date, what I did, minutes, could this be done by someone else or bought.

Write it as you go, on paper, on the fridge. Reconstructing a week on Sunday night produces a number that is too low.

At the end of the fortnight, total it. Then total three subcategories separately: hours driving, hours on the phone or on paperwork, and hours that only you can do because of who you are rather than what the task is.

That last number is usually much smaller than the total, and the gap between them is the entire opportunity. You are not trying to stop caring for your parent. You are trying to stop being the person who also orders the supplies, sits on hold, and drives forty minutes for a fifteen-minute appointment.

The twelve questions

Answer these with the log in front of you, in writing, in one sitting. They are deliberately mechanical. Every one has an answer that is a number, a name, or a date — and an answer of that kind can be acted on this week.

If a question has no answer, that blank is the most important thing on the page. Circle it.

• How many hours did last week take, in total, from the log?
• How many of those hours were driving?
• When was the last full day with nothing scheduled — the actual date?
• Which tasks genuinely require me, and which require any competent adult?
• Which tasks could be delivered, ordered online, automated, or paid for?
• Who has offered help in the last six months, and what exactly did I say to them?
• If I had flu tomorrow and could not get out of bed, who takes over — by name?
• Does that person have keys, the door code, the binder, and the phone numbers?
• What happens on day three of my absence, and who decides it?
• When is the next block of time I have booked for myself, and is it in the calendar with a name on it?
• Which weekly task could be monthly? Which appointment could be a phone call?
• What am I paying for in hours that could be bought with money instead?

Turn the answers into named cover

Cover is a list of people with tasks against their names. It is not goodwill, and it is not a feeling of being supported.

Make a cover sheet with four columns: who, what they would do, phone number, what they need to do it — keys, the door code, the binder page, the parking situation, whether the dog knows them.

Go back to everyone who has ever offered and convert the offer into a fixed slot. The exact wording matters: not "could you help sometime?" but "Could you take Thursday evenings, every fortnight, from six to nine?" Named slots get accepted and get honoured. Open offers do not, and both of you know it.

Give each person one defined thing rather than general availability. "You do the prescriptions and the pharmacy" is a real job someone can own. "Help out more" is a source of resentment on both sides.

Put the cover sheet on the fridge and a copy in the binder. Everyone on it gets a copy, so that they can ring each other rather than ringing you.

And write your own name at the top of one row, with what only you do. Seeing the short list of what genuinely requires you is the point of the whole exercise.

Book the gap like an appointment, or it will not happen

Time that is not in the calendar does not exist. It gets absorbed within a week, every time, and the absorption is invisible.

Put it in the shared calendar with a name on it. Not "free" — "Saturday 10th, Anna covering, back Sunday 6pm." A named block with a named person is defensible. An empty slot is an invitation.

Book the cover first and the time second. Ring the person, agree the date, then write it in. Doing it the other way round produces a calendar entry that quietly dissolves.

Write a one-page handover for whoever covers: the day's shape, mealtimes, what is where, who to ring for what, the pharmacy number, what to do if X happens and who decides. One page, on the counter, updated once and reused. Producing this once is what makes every subsequent absence possible.

Tell somebody the date out loud. A plan you have told your sister about survives; a plan in your head does not.

And start smaller than feels worth doing. A booked Wednesday morning that actually happens is worth more than a week away that gets cancelled in March.

When the honest answer is: there is no cover

Sometimes you do the exercise and the backup column is empty. That is not a personal failing and it will not be fixed by resolving to cope better. It is fixed by making calls, so here are the calls.

Work down the list in one sitting with the call log open. Write who you rang, when, what they said, and what happens next. Some of these lead nowhere and some open a door — you cannot tell which in advance, which is why you do all of them rather than choosing.

• Your parent's insurance plan: ask whether a case manager is assigned and get the direct number
• Your local Area Agency on Aging: ask what is available in your area and what the process is to be assessed for it
• Any facility you have already spoken to: ask whether they offer short respite stays, what they cost, and how far ahead they book
• A home care agency: ask about a trial block of hours, the minimum booking, the cost, and how quickly they can start
• Your parent's doctor's office: ask what support services they refer to locally, and how a referral is made
• Your employer's HR: ask what leave policies exist, what notice they need, and what documentation
• A local charity or support organisation for the relevant condition: ask what practical help exists near you
• Your own doctor's office: book the appointment you have moved twice

Keep the log, and look again next month

Do not throw the hours log away. It is the only objective record of what this actually takes, and it has three later uses.

It is what you show a sibling. "I feel overwhelmed" is arguable. "Here are 47 hours in a fortnight, 11 of them driving" is not, and it changes conversations that have been stuck for a year.

It is what you use when you ring an agency or an employer, because both will ask what is needed and a number is a much better answer than a description.

And it is your baseline. Keep a second log for a fortnight in three months and compare the totals. If the number has not moved, the cover you arranged is not real and you need to look at why — usually because it was an open offer rather than a named slot.

Put a recurring date in the calendar, monthly, twenty minutes, called "look at the sheet." Read the twelve questions again and see which blanks are still blank.

Keep the cover sheet current. People move, jobs change, and the useful version of that page is the one that was updated this season rather than last year.

Questions