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

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.

Transitioning to Stay at Home Mom

November 18, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Well, last week was week 1 of staying at home with the kids.

The funny thing is, I don’t even think staying home with the kids is the biggest part of the transition right now.

I quit my job so I’m no longer going into the office each day. My husband kept his job and is now working from home. I went from leaving the house by 7:10 with 2 kids to no one leaving the house before 8:00. In fact last week no one had anywhere outside of the house to be unless I made plans.

Transitioning to Stay at Home Mom - Just Getting Things Done — One of my favorite things about the new house is sitting across from the kids eating breakfast.

We’ve moved to a new house, which has brought lots of changes. The two older girls no longer share a room, but they are now on the same floor as everyone else so sometimes the baby wakes them up. There are still things in boxes and we haven’t figured out the right place for everything yet. A lot of things are in “temporary” places that don’t necessarily make the most sense.

We don’t own our new house yet, we’re currently renting it because we haven’t sold our “old” house yet so it doesn’t really feel likes it’s ours. We had planned to make some cosmetic updates before moving in, but that didn’t happen. Because we haven’t finalized everything yet, we aren’t doing some of the things we would do like painting, putting up shelves, basically making any changes we might want to make but would cost us money that we wouldn’t recuperate if for some reason the deal falls through.

We have bought several small things and are working on restocking the fridge. We thought we were going to pack all the condiments we had in the fridge, but in the end we just threw it all away. We didn’t want to be wasteful, but just seemed like too much of a pain to haul all of that in the car for three days.

The new house is in a very different type of area, but so far I love it. It’s more suburban. It feels secluded but is right near a lot of shops, so everything is really convenient instead of a huge hassle, which is great.

Our kindergartner is now enrolled but hasn’t started school, so that’s another transition to look forward to.

Despite all of those changes, I thought the week went pretty well.

Staying at home caring for the kids doesn’t really feel that different because, well, they’ve always been my kids and I’ve always taken care of them. Obviously most of that happened on the weekend/nights with my husband, and now it’s just me all day. But so far that part isn’t too hard.

Moving Across the Country With 3 Kids – Expect the Unexpected

October 30, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I don’t know the best way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. As a parent you should already know this:

Things are probably not going to go as planned.

Moving with 3 Kids - Expect the Unexpected: Just Getting Things Done

Let me give you some examples of how this has worked out for us.

We didn’t get an offer on our house the first week.

You might think I mean this as some kind of joke.

I don’t.

My husband was upset we didn’t have an offer after our house was on the market for 3 days. All of the stories we heard were: “I put my house on the market and had a full cash offer in 18 hours without the buyers ever even seeing the house.” “We did an open house when we put our house on the market around Thanksgiving and one of the people that came to the first open house bought our house.”

That is not what the market looks like in our area right now.

But we had high expectations.

It’s been on the market over a month and we haven’t had an offer.

The kids got sick.

Yeah, you probably know this one too. What’s the worst timing for the kids to get sick? That’s when they will get sick. And it was the stomach flu.

Who would have thought it would be baby #3 that would be the first to puke in the car?

Not me.

It happened while we had a showing at our house no less. They were still here 5 minutes before the hour was up! I had to run in and grab cleaning supplies while they were still here and of course “My 1 year old just puked in my car and I need to grab some cleaning supplies.” just came flying out of my mouth.

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to buy this house if that happened while I was here looking at it either.

We’ve barely been in the office our last two weeks at work.

The worst part about the baby getting sick was it came right on the heels of 3 days off school for the kindergartner and in my last full week of work. Between my husband and I we were home all week last week plus the Friday before and the Monday after.

So, if you have big plans to accomplish a lot your last couple weeks at work, beware. A bunch of stuff will probably come up and you won’t get nearly as much work done as expected.

In fact I should be at work right now, but I’m taking a sick day to stay home with the baby (which honestly, is totally fine with me). Thankfully I had some sick time though. There’s just a little bit of guilt about actually using it…

Think showings will be scheduled for when you’re already planning to be out of the house?

Think again.

Showings are always at the most inconvenient times.

For one showing my husband had to be out of the house with the kindergartner during a work call while his car was in the shop.

We had an 8:30 am showing on a Saturday! Followed by 12-1 and then 1:45-2:45.

Seriously, we’re normally out of the house all week. Now you want to ruin our whole Saturday and make it impossible for us to clean and do laundry?

Yes, that’s exactly how it goes.

But, you don’t have to stress about any of that stuff because you don’t have control over it. You don’t control the school calendar and you surely don’t control when your kids get sick. You don’t control other people’s schedules either.

Focus on what you can control and let go of the rest. Make it as simple as possible and you will get through it.

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!

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