Just Getting Things Done – Helping overwhelmed and exhausted moms break free from the chaos and feel like themselves again.

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.

Big Life Changes

September 27, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I was listening to this podcast episode that my sister told me about in the car yesterday. It was about being a working mom. The woman being interviewed was talking about how other moms were asking her how she had time to do things like throw amazing birthday parties, do scrapbooking and other things on top of working full time, having a blog and being a speaker. She said, “What they were really asking was how I had time to do things I loved.”

I don’t want to do scrapbooking, but there was a little bit of jealousy there. Jealousy that she was so good at making time for things she loved to do that people were asking her about it. That she was doing all the things I thought I wanted to do, and doing them so well that other people wanted to learn from her.

She’s written two books! And she has three kids!

I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure out how to simplify things so that I could have the job and the blog and still make time for me, all while actually enjoying my children.

That was the whole point.

When I heard her talking though, I thought I wasn’t as good at it as she was. (That’s apparently always going to be my thing, “I’m not good enough.”)

But that’s not what it is.

I want something different.

It’s been really hard to realize it and admit it.

It’s really hard to picture it.

It’s hard to talk about it in the right way. For some reason I tell people ridiculous things like “I think my kids will be bored at home all the time because they’re used to daycare.”

Now I’m just saying things like, “I’m kind of scared to be home with them and my husband all day.”

It goes a little deeper than that. I mean, I am kind of scared. I’m scared I won’t be the mom I want to be. I’m scared that I’ll turn into someone that’s just yelling at my kids and always frustrated.

But that’s ridiculous because I’ve spent months working on tools to help me be the parent I want to be.

I guess what’s really scary is, what if I have the chance to be the person I want to be and I’m not good at it? Or I don’t like it?

I’m one of those people that likes to be challenged. I like to solve problems creatively. That’s my superpower, seeing things differently and seeing solutions other people don’t see.

But now I’m admitting and stepping up to my dream.

It’s exciting.

It will take a lot of work.

It will be a challenge. (Didn’t I just say I like challenges?)

It means going from being complacent to taking a leap.

It’s meant to be a little bit scary.

Growth can be a little bit scary. It can give you that feeling in the pit of your stomach. The first few times you feel it you think it means you’re supposed to back off. But if you practice, you’ll realize it means you’re about to do something amazing.

So, here’s to the next chapter.

I think it will be amazing!

Moving Across the Country with Kids – Timing the Details

September 11, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Just Getting Things Done: Moving Across the Country with Kids - Phase 2 One of the hardest parts of moving across the country is trying to figure out the timing of everything.

We don’t really remember everything that happened when we bought our house. It was like 8 years ago, before kids. It feels like a whole different lifetime. And doing all that crap without having kids is completely different than doing it when you already have 3 small children. Plus, where we’re going is a completely different market. So we’re not even really sure how everything works on the buying end.

And now we have to sell a house too!

We have never sold a house before, so we don’t really have a great idea of how the whole process of selling a house works. That was one of the things that could have held us back, even the idea of getting the house ready to put on the market just seemed like it would be too much work. We would never have time for it. I’ll write more about this, but let me just say that asking for help is the best way to accomplish this part.

I’m thinking you just do it all on a wing and a prayer.

You pray that your house sells quickly.

You wing it when it comes to when to quit your job, give notice at daycare, give notice at aftercare, pull your child out of school, move out of your house, etc.

For now it feels like there are a million balls in the air and a million things to think about. It’s exciting. But it’s also a little difficult because it’s just hard to function when you have so much going on in your head.

I just try to take it one thing at a time.

First step, get the house listed.

I mean, there are a lot of steps that need to happen to accomplish Step #1, but I can break all that down to.

What’s the big thing that needs to happen next?

What actions do I need to take to get there?

There’s really no question about when it can get done, so I don’t exactly have to schedule it. Nights. Weekends. That’s all there is.

Sidenote: I was looking for an image to use in this post and the images of happy, smiling, put-together families with children surrounded by an immaculate room with a cute stack of boxes just kill me. Not realistic.

We’re Moving Across the Country with Three Little Kids!?!

September 7, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

We made a huge decision – we’re moving across the country!

From Denver, CO to Grand Rapids, MI.

How did we come to this decision?

It feels like we had one conversation and that was it, decision made. But that’s not really how it went down.

My husband has been saying since we got married that he would move to Grand Rapids.

He’s been telling me for the last year (or more) that we could pay cash for a house there. (I did not believe him.)

About a month and a half ago, we went to Grand Rapids. When I was there I asked my aunt how much her house was listed at. She wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t even ask how much she paid. I knew she wouldn’t answer that, but I was curious to know what a gorgeous house like that costs in that area. I thought my husband would want to know.

I noticed a house for sale down the street from my mom, but didn’t think too much about it.

She pointed out her realtor’s house (also down the street) when we were out for a walk.

We got back to Denver and I think we wanted to find the house down the street from my mom.

We started looking on realtor.com.

I realized we could actually get enough from the sale of our current house to be able to pay cash for a house in the Grand Rapids area.

Everything just snowballed from there.

One night, we sat on the couch and we talked about it.

What if?

What if we can pay cash for a house?

What if I could quit my job?

What if the kids didn’t have to be in daycare, but could be?

What if we could spend the summers at the beach with the kids?

What if my mom could watch them twice a week?

We finally found an idea that we were excited about.

We didn’t “officially” decide with that conversation, but that was when we knew, we were both ready for a big change and this was the big change we wanted. It took another week or so and some move conversations to really decide.

Every other conversation we’d had about adding on to the house, finding a new house in Denver, just left us feeling blah. It never felt right.

We have a lot of family here that we don’t want to leave, and we knew that would be the hardest part. It’s one of the biggest things keeping us here and one of the main things holding us back.

I hesitate to put this in writing, because I don’t really like to admit it, but the reality is the idea of how much work it would take to move was holding us back too.

We’re just tired.

We’re tired of the way our life is right now. It doesn’t fill us up with energy, it drains us. So we knew that finding the energy to move would be hard. (It’s excitement and asking for help that fuels it, by the way).

But that’s why we want to make this move.

We’re tired and we’re ready for a change.

Telling people makes it feel real.

My husband started telling people probably before I was ready, but then it was like “I guess we can’t back out now.”

It kind of pushed us to action, because we did mean it.

So now it’s official – we’re moving.

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.

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