Productivity

Grocery Delivery is the Best Thing Ever

February 17, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Yes, grocery delivery is the best thing ever. Instead of spending an hour or more at the grocery store, I can be watching Netflix while the kids are napping and the grocery store employee stops by to drop off my groceries and carry them into the kitchen (if my husband lets them).

I’m not going to lie, it took me a long time to even give this a try. You know, I had the usual excuses. I like to pick out my produce. I like to see what looks good. Basically, I like to be in control.

First, I tried a service where I could order my groceries online and then go to the store and they would bring them out to my car. It was ok. They did a good job with the meat and the produce. It took me longer than I wanted to actually order all the stuff for the first time, but it was kind of nice.

The problem was I still had to go to the store and pick them up.

If we had activities on the weekend that I knew would bring us to the store, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But we don’t. So I still had to go out of my way to make a trip to the store.

I decided to find out who would actually bring groceries to me and found that our local Safeway (Albertson’s) would deliver. Not only that, they had a code for $25 off and free delivery for your first order. How could I pass that up? [Read more…] about Grocery Delivery is the Best Thing Ever

Turning Procrastination into Reward

December 7, 2017 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Procrastination into Reward

The other day I had the day off but my husband had to work and daycare was open. By 7:30 I was home alone and had the whole day to myself. I thought since I had so much time to myself I’d get a ton of things done.

I knew I should write a list so I’d have a better chance of actually doing them, but I had hot coffee and I never get to drink my coffee while it’s still hot, so I sat on the couch and turned on the news. I figured I deserved to drink my coffee hot at least once in awhile. I didn’t really care about the weather or any of the stories I saw, so I decided to look for something more interesting.

I saw that Bravo was doing a marathon of a show called Flipping Out and I decided to check it out. After the first episode I looked at the clock, saw how late it was and realized I really needed to eat. So I paused the show and went and got breakfast.

When I got some food, I figured I might as well watch some more tv while I ate breakfast because I couldn’t accomplish anything else while I ate. So I watched another episode.

I was feeling guilty because I couldn’t believe I was watching this crazy show about a guy running a design business in LA and all the drama with his employees and personal life, but I was totally hooked. Didn’t I deserve to hang out and watch some tv? I should be able to relax a little bit on my day off, right?

I mean, I had intentions of accomplishing all kinds of things, even though I didn’t really know what they were. I was going to get the house cleaned up, put everything away, do all those little things I never feel like I have time for. Instead I’m sitting on the couch watching reality tv. But I couldn’t stop watching.

It was just so easy to sit on the couch, even though in my mind I knew I should be doing something else.

How Do Working Moms Get It All Done?

October 30, 2017 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Working Moms Get It All Done - Working Mom — © Meredith Moran Photography www.meredithkmoran.com

I remember when I went back to work after my first daughter, Emma, was born. I was overwhelmed with questions. How do I focus on work when I left my baby with someone else? How do I know if I did the right thing by coming back to work? How am I supposed to remember everything? Am I a bad mom because I’m excited to only be responsible for myself for the next 8 hours?

So I did what anyone does these days when they have a question. I turned to Google.

One of the biggest questions I had was “How do working moms get it all done?”

So I googled that and “How do working moms do it all?” The search results were filled with articles telling me that I couldn’t do it all. They said things like “just accept that you’ll have dirty dishes” or that “your laundry will never be done.” They told me I would just have to lower my standards. That was the only way I would be able to get by as a working mom.

But that didn’t work for me. What if it makes me happy to cook dinner every night and to make sure we don’t ever have piles of dirty laundry laying around the house? What if mountains of dirty dishes would make me unhappy? As a working mom, what am I supposed to do then?

There was no good answer that I could find.

Be More Productive At Home and Still Spend Quality Time With Your Kids

October 5, 2016 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

The 5 strategies I’ve implemented to get more done at home and still spend quality time with my kids.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently working on my time management and I’ve come up with 5 strategies that really help me get stuff done while still spending quality time with my girls. You’ll probably recognize a couple of them because they are basically my foundation. But a couple of them surprised me and I’ve been told they surprised others too.

You can read the whole article over here on Lifehack.

Why I Don’t Tell Myself “I’ll Do It Later”

July 8, 2016 by Rachel Bowman 2 Comments

I used to see things around the house that I needed to deal with and I would think to myself “I’ll do that later” and then I’d forget about it as I continued on with whatever I was doing. Later that same day I might see it again and think to myself “I’ll do that later.” This cycle of noticing it and not doing anything about it would continue on until at some point I would either forget about it or eventually do whatever it was that needed to be done. Because later I would be sitting on the couch and would have no idea what any of the things were that I told myself I’d do.

I did this with all kinds of things. Hair things on the mantel that needed to be put away. Things that I had bought for myself that needed to get tried on or put away (or even worse, returned). The kids’ artwork that I didn’t know what to do with. Glasses on the counter that for some reason didn’t make it into the dishwasher. This is a special case because my husband usually loads the dishwasher and sometimes he will keep things out of the dishwasher for days on end, just languishing on the counter for some unknown reason I can’t comprehend. I would see them and wonder why they were still out and probably even get irritated because had no idea why he didn’t just put them in the dishwasher. But it would take me days of seeing it and getting irritated until I would finally do something about it. Days of getting irritated over something that takes 2 seconds to do! [Read more…] about Why I Don’t Tell Myself “I’ll Do It Later”

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