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

How I Quit My Job Of 10 Years

December 27, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

This is the story of how I told my company I was leaving after 10 years. I wrote it right after it happened and didn’t publish it right away, but thought you might want to know how it went down.

How I Quit My Job Of 10 Years - Just Getting Things Done

Well, I didn’t really mean to tell my boss yet that I was quitting to move back to my hometown, but it happened.

I had just finished a conversation with my friend and coworker about how give-a-shits were kind of low but I could just coast along because no one was saying anything when our director called me into his office. At first I thought we were just having that meeting we were supposed to have, but when he headed to his office and closed the door I knew something was up.

He opened with, “You seem disengaged.”

I was quiet for a minute and then said, “Yeah.”

The conversation did not go the way he thought it was going to go.

I’m direct. I couldn’t just lie to his face when he asked me about it. The second sentence out of my mouth was,

“I’m going to be quitting and moving to Michigan.”

It was not pretty. I cried when I said it.

Suddenly quitting my job was real.

We made the decision just like that, but it still seemed like an idea. I mean, in our heads we were like already there. We were picturing ourselves living in those houses we saw on realtor.com. But really we were still doing the same things we did every other day.

Then all of the sudden, I was really quitting my job.

I couldn’t take it back after I told him.

I had to call my husband afterward and I was crying so hard at first that he almost freaked out because he didn’t know what was wrong. I calmed down enough to talk to him but I was overwhelmed because I didn’t expect to do it yet.

That was yesterday.

I was asked to talk to my boss today (Friday). It took me most of the day, but finally I went and had the conversation with her.

It was easier than the conversation yesterday because I was prepared for it. It was also harder in that she was practically crying about it, which of course made me teary and emotional, but we both made it through.

I texted my mom yesterday and told her that I had told our director. She said, “Bring it on!”

That at least made me smile.

I know she’s cheering for me.

Well, my whole family really. My sister is just cheering with tears in her eyes maybe, but then again, me too.

Moving With 3 Kids – Expect the Unexpected Part II

December 20, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Yes, I already wrote a post warning you to expect the unexpected, but some other things happened and I didn’t think it was right to leave them out. So I bring you Part II:

Moving With 3 Kids - Expect the Unexpected Part II: Just Getting Things Done

The movers called the day before our move to tell us they were changing the date.

Yup, that’s right. The day before the big move we got a call saying our driver wasn’t going to make it to town in time. They told my husband they could still come and get the stuff that day and then store it over the weekend.

He was going to do that until I was like,

“Does that mean they have to load it, unload it and then load it again? Because if they do, that is not ok.”

He had to call back.

The answer was yes, they were going to bring a truck, load our stuff, drive it over to some warehouse, unload it and then load it all up when the driver who was actually going to take it across the country got there with his truck.

We said no thanks. He can just come on Monday. Then he showed up on Saturday to scope out the situation before bringing his big rig.

All our plans changed last minute.

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.

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