Productivity

Agree or Disagree – Kendra Hennessy says to Take a Chill Pill

January 22, 2019 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Kendra Hennessy of Mother Like a Boss has a podcast episode called Take a chill pill. In the episode she says, of course, that we all need to take a chill pill. We need to chill out our egos because we’re letting them run the show. Our egos are always complaining, telling us what we’re doing is wrong and forcing us to worry about things we don’t need to worry about.

I don’t know about all that. I mean, I had to look up ego to even try to wrap my head around it. According to google, our ego is our sense of self-esteem or self-importance, by the way.

She also said we’re all so worried about how people will perceive us and how we show up, and I definitely do those things. If I had to say it in my own words, I guess I would say we have to stop taking ourselves so seriously. And also, other people don’t notice what you do as much as you think they do. We’re all too busy thinking about ourselves.

What works for Kendra is to take action. She said you can sit down and answer these questions:

What are you worried about?
What can you change?

Get it out of your head and let go of the stuff you can’t change and do something about the stuff you can change so you can enjoy what’s surrounding you right now.

(She goes into a lot more detail on control in Episode 103, Letting go of the need to control)

Do you agree or disagree?

I agree that if you feel that way, getting it all out of your head and onto paper so you can determine what things are out of your control and let go of those, and which things you can do something about is a good thing.

Stay at Home Mom – Is It Really Freedom?

November 28, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

For the first two weeks after I quit my job and we moved, I didn’t have any commitments. My mom would call up and we would decide what we wanted to do, and I would load the three kids up in the car and we would go do whatever I wanted.

It was great.

We got to see my mom every day or every other day. It felt great to decide what I wanted to do with my days.

This is what I pictured it looking like.

This was the freedom I was looking for when I quit my job!

Then we finished getting our 5 year old enrolled in kindergarten and they were ready for her to start and I was like

“Now I have to be at school at 8:20 and 3:40 every day?!? What the hell?”

I mean, we’re a short walk from the school, but still,

I didn’t like the idea of having to be at a certain place at a certain time twice a day every day.

We had also talked about putting our 3 year old in preschool (at the same school as the kindergartner). I made the phone calls to get it set up and then started questioning that too.

“Do I really want to have commitments on Tuesday and Thursday mornings too? If we do swim lessons or something, that only leaves two free mornings a week…That’s not enough free time.”

I didn’t really want to put her in preschool because I liked having all of our mornings free. I mean, preschool’s only for two and a half hours, and then I’ll have to be at school 4 times on those days. I can’t leave the baby with my husband 4 times in one day. He has to actually get work done. So that means I’ll have to take the baby with me at least 2 of the 4 times…

I enrolled her in preschool anyway.

Maybe because they want her to start after the holidays, so I haven’t really had to face up to it yet.

But it has made me wonder, am I thinking about freedom wrong?

I thought freedom mean that you have “free time” all the time but alas, it does not.

Maybe freedom means having the freedom to choose whether or not to put her in preschool. Or even that 2 half days of preschool are something we can do because we don’t need her in full time care.

Is it the freedom to decide what I want to do with my time, not just in the moment but ahead of time?

The freedom to schedule things during the day? Or even at 5:00?

I never even considered doing activities at those times before. Well, I did consider doing them but never did.

My oldest wanted to do dance lessons and I looked into it and never found a time that worked for us. Which is to say, I didn’t want to make any of those times work for us because it was just too much for me. Our days were already spoken for and we didn’t have room for anything else.

But now I do have the time and I find I’m still resisting making new commitments.

Even when I know that having “free time” all the time is not a good thing for me – because I will just sit around watching tv or reading (when the kids aren’t awake of course).

Forget about cleaning the house. I may pick up, but I’m not going to be accomplishing grand things while the kids are napping because in my free time I just want to relax.

Most of that “free time” I talked about before is actually time where I’m taking care of my children. Which also means that we can do what we want as long as we’re home by noon, or maybe 12:30 at the latest because my kids nap.

I have to adjust my idea of freedom.

It’s not the freedom to do what I want whenever I want with no responsibilities. I’m still married. I still have kids. I still have responsibilities in our home. I also still want to do things that are just for me. So I’m still working on the idea that I can have time commitments and still have freedom.

It’s the freedom of choice.

I get to choose how I spend my time and how my children spend theirs.

I have to make choices for myself and my kids. This is new for me. Defaulting to watching Netflix (thanks Offspring) is still a choice, but not a good one. I’m working on making better choices about how we spend our time, but I think it’s going to take awhile.

Work-life Balance is Not a Myth

October 5, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I’m excited to bring you a guest post today!

Suzanne Brown is a strategic marketing and business consultant and work-life balance speaker, strategist, and bestselling author on Amazon. She empowers working moms to create the balance they crave with small changes that make a big impact over time. Check out www.mompowerment.com to watch her TED talk, read more about her books, and read her weekly blog about topics related to work-life balance such as productivity, time management, and being intentional with your time. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband and two young boys. You can find her latest book on work-life balance for working moms on Amazon.

I have heard work-life balance is a myth, but I don’t agree.

What is a myth is trying to evenly divide your time on a daily basis.

You might have days when you get that 50/50 split, but they will be rare. And on the many days you don’t get it, you’ll likely feel disappointed and unnecessary pressure.

Who wants to feel like they fail on a daily basis?

So, what is a more realistic approach? What is doable when it comes to work-life balance?

Two mindset shifts can help make things easier (sorry, nothing makes things truly easy) when you’re trying to create more work-life balance as a working mom.

1. Think of work-life balance over the long-term.

Consider how you balance your time over a week, month, quarter, or even the year. This approach can take some of the pressure off and maybe even help with mommy guilt.

What does it look like?

Maybe you work like crazy during the week, so that your weekends are all about family. Perhaps one morning a week you head to work later than usual so that you can volunteer in the library for your child’s class. You could look into working from home one day a week so that you don’t have commute time and get started and end earlier.

There is no one way, so see what works over the long term for you and your needs.

2. Consider that each side of your life doesn’t have equal value.

An hour of time with your family and an hour of work time aren’t necessarily equal. Only you can decide how much of each kind of time balances out the other kinds of time (e.g., family, work, time with friends, passion project, etc.). And don’t let others’ assessment of value change your value formula.

You’ve probably noticed that I’m not offering up a formula or a specific approach that makes things easier.

It’s really based on your needs and your situation.

What works for your sister, best friend, or neighbor might not work for you and vice versa. That is not a bad thing. It’s actually a great thing.

You get to decide.

And it takes away the need to compare.

You’re talking to others to get ideas, but you can take what you want or adjust the ideas to fit your needs. Leave the rest of the advice and ideas behind. You get to make balance what you want and when you want it. It’s actually quite freeing when you think about it.

When it comes to being better about work-life balance, there are a few areas that can really make a difference in becoming more efficient with your time.

Consider how you work.

Many professional working moms I interviewed use batching or time blocking, where you work on like things together (e.g., email, writing blogs, doing research for projects, etc.). An alternative to this, especially if you have a choppier day, is the Pomodoro technique. You work for 25 minutes and then rest for 5. I highly suggest you maximize both kinds of time in this case. For example, if you work from home, use the 5-minute pockets to unload the dishwasher. Two sets of 5-minute windows and you’re done.

Create and maintain boundaries.

Let’s face it. Technology is a great enabler for making things happen at work, but it can also blur boundaries. You want to have time away from work each night so that you have time to recharge. One key element to this is to define emergencies and have everyone on your team, including your clients and suppliers, agree. You can also agree with your family about personal emergencies, so they know when it’s OK to interrupt work time.

Boundaries can also help you divide your time because they aren’t only between work and life. They can help you create buckets of time on your calendar to get things done. Essentially, these boundaries can help you divide up your day so that you’re efficient with your time.

Take time for self-care.

Who hasn’t heard the comment about putting on your own oxygen mask first. Let’s face it, though, most working moms ignore that advice regularly. Self-care really is important, though. It’s not selfish. And think about what a better mom, wife, employee, friend, etc. you’ll be if you take time to regularly fill your cup.

I’ll leave you with a final thought.

You have the power to create the work-life balance you want.

You might not have ideas, but that is where your tribe comes in. All those moms who love and support you, they have loads of ideas and things that work in their lives. They might work in your life or you might need to adjust them a bit so they work better with your needs. Start talking about solutions and things that work. Ask them about challenges you’re having, so that you can get an outside opinion. Support your fellow working moms and ask for support. We can do this individually, but we can definitely do it better (and maybe faster) when we are all supporting each other.

What Moving Taught Me about How Much It’s Possible to Get Done with Toddlers

October 3, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

We have been doing so much work to get our house ready to put on the market. I remember telling my husband before we even had three kids that we were never moving because we had too much stuff. If you know anything about me, you know that I don’t want piles of stuff. In fact, I want the opposite. We can go into how we managed to accrue all that stuff another time.

The point is, we have three children 5 and under. We just keep getting more and more stuff. We let the deep cleaning slide. Our days are full and when the kids go to sleep, we just want some time to unwind.

For the last few weeks, with the help of my family, we have been busting our butts. Getting rid of the stuff, boxing up and storing what we want but don’t immediately need and cleaning.

I cannot believe how much we’ve accomplished!

What Moving Taught Me about How Much It's Possible to Get Done with Toddlers

This big room in our basement used to look like a Goodwill donation center. Just piles of stuff everywhere. I can’t believe we got it to this state.

And here’s the thing – the house looks the way I always wanted it to look. (Well, ok, I would have liked this particular room set up a little better, but you know what I mean.)

It’s sort of sad or ironic, but I think that’s the way it often goes. When you have the right type of motivation or when you have a specific end goal that’s not “decluttering”, you invest time and energy that you otherwise wouldn’t. Basically, when you want to sell your house you finally get it looking the way you always wanted it to. You tackle those repairs that have been on the to-do list forever. You finally take the time to spackle the walls and paint. You clean those things you may have noticed but never took the time to address.

I mean yes, that’s what we all want to do but it takes hours of hard work, sacrifice and being on the same page with your husband and it seems impossible to do when you have little ones running around.

It’s not impossible, but it is hard.

Seriously. We’ve been staying up late, swapping turns taking the kids out of the house, working when we have time without the kids. It’s been tough.

Know Thyself – I Hate Planning, or Do I?

August 8, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Know thyself is one of Gretchen Rubin’s universal truths, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It’s hard to know ourselves because there are a million different criteria we can use. Just look at how many different personality tests are out there.

I read Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection and she talks about courage, compassion and connection. She talks about resilience, shame, joy, gratitude, etc., etc.

How are we supposed to know how we react to all of those emotions?

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Do you avoid conflict? Are you highly sensitive?

We could take up all of our time just trying to know ourselves.

Instead of devoting all my time to this, you know, because I have a family and a job and stuff, I’m trying to just pay attention more. To be mindful.

Know Thyself - I Hate Planning, or Do I? - Just Getting Things Done

One of the things that makes this harder than it should be is we have these ideas of ourselves that may not be true. For example, I thought I liked planning and I probably would have even said I was good at it.

But I just realized –

I hate planning!

Any of my family members that read this are probably laughing out loud because of how obvious it was (is) to them.

Why was I so wrong about myself?

Well, when you’re on your own you have to plan at least some things. So you do it. In my marriage, I feel like I have to plan. This task falls to me because “I’m the planner.”

Which is ridiculous because it’s not true.

If I were good at planning or enjoyed it, we would have gone to Florida this year.

We didn’t.

I wanted to go see my aunt and grandparents, to spend time with them and so they could meet Clara. My husband also wanted to go because he wanted a vacation at the beach and to see my family.

We missed my opportunity to go because I couldn’t plan it. (And by missed our opportunity, it’s because my aunt isn’t there anymore and we would have stayed with her.)

There were too many decisions to make. Was it worth it to fly Frontier and take a red eye because it cost 1/3 of the price of any other airline? How many seats would we need? Who would sit with who? When should we go? How long should we stay?

It was just too much.

The same thing happened again recently. My husband started asking what we were going to do for Emma’s party. I knew I didn’t want a party with her whole entire class, but that was about all I knew. My husband kept trying to get me to make a decision and I wouldn’t do it.

So what did we do for her birthday? We picked her up from daycare (they did cupcakes without us) and went to Whole Foods and let her pick what she wanted for dinner. She also picked out a hydrangea plant.

I didn’t even get her a birthday present!

I had so many excuses for why I didn’t. She didn’t need anything. She would be getting lots of gifts anyway. We already have too much stuff.

Then why did I feel bad?

I wanted to have planned something for her and I didn’t.

I let myself get hung up on details and expectations and I don’t do it in a way that works for me.

When I dug deeper I realized that I do like planning, I was just going at it wrong.

I like planning things and looking forward to them, but I sometimes get hung up on details or other expectations.

I want to plan a trip but there are so many questions that I get overwhelmed. I lose sight of the big thing and get mired in the details.

When it comes to presents, I’m the same way. I want to do something really thoughtful and find something the other person really wants, but I’m not always great at that, so I just give up.

Now I’m looking at planning differently.

I planned a mom’s night out for a date, time and location that worked for me.

One other person showed up.

It was great! We had a good conversation. We’ve gotten together since.

I actually made a new friend.

I guess the lesson was that I need to stop telling myself I hate planning and plan things I enjoy.

Moms Getting Through the Day – Lazy Breakfast, Feeling Put-Together and a Bath

April 13, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

This is the sixth post in this series, the first is here, second, third, fourth, fifth.

This didn’t actually happen today. When I was about to get in the shower I heard one of the girls and it reminded me of Tuesday morning. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about something that happened that was so good.

Tuesday morning the girls and I enjoyed a relaxed breakfast together.

The big girls were eating bagel donuts (bagels with cream cheese with sprinkles on top). Emma was sitting by Clara helping her. It was so sweet. She was giving her puffs and drinks of water. Emma didn’t think she’d be able to give her a drink of water because Clara uses an open cup (it’s a Montessori thing), and even when the adults do it we spill. But she tried and was good at it. It was really cute.

Ivy was sitting on my lap giving me some snuggles. We were all talking and enjoying each other’s company. Everyone was in a good mood. It was nice. What a great way to start the day. And something I should remember!

As for Thursday, there were a couple things that helped me get through the day.

Feeling put-together!

Mom Getting Through the Day - Breakfast, Feeling Put-Together and a Bath; Just Getting Things Done

Once I decided to accept my body the way is it now, I had to start working on my wardrobe, which I am still doing. Because I spent time on my wardrobe, I was able to just grab an outfit that I knew would look good together.

I just got a great striped shirt that’s exactly what I wanted and comfortable. When I got it, I looked at it with my new gray ankle-length jeans and liked them together. I also got some other shirts. I tested how the jeans and shirts would look with my black and gray blazers. I tried on some of the outfits, some I just looked at.

Yesterday I wanted to look professional and I was already out of blouses, so I knew I wanted to wear the striped shirt. I also knew how I could use it in an outfit.

I could just throw on the whole outfit.

I wasn’t sure which shoes I wanted to wear, so I tried on two pairs of shoes, but either would have worked.

I even put a necklace on!

I know for some people that’s normal, but I rarely wear necklaces unless I’m in a phase where I wear a particular one every day.

The best part of the outfit though was that I felt good and I felt like I looked put-together. When I see other people that look put-together, it looks effortless. It’s not. It’s just not the kind of effort I thought. The effort is more in the shopping and making sure what you have works together.

I don’t know what it was, but I was just kind of frustrated last night and didn’t have as much patience as I sometimes do. I also got a headache. So, I decided I just needed some quiet and something that would actually relax me.

My new thing is to take a bath.

It’s actually surprisingly easy to get a bath in. Even though we have a jack-and-jill bath and the baby is on the other side of the bathroom door. Even though I put the girls to bed last night. Even though I had other stuff I felt like I should be doing (like writing this post), I decided I just needed some quiet time to relax. So I did.

I also started putting essential oils in my bath. I don’t know the benefits or uses of them, but I’m not letting that stop me any more. I just put in the scents I like.

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