When people find out that I run a small business AND have 3 small children at home, they typically make the same comment: “Wow you’re busy!” And, I usually laugh it off or say, “oh we are just taking it day by day!” Or something like that. My mom-friends ask me, “HOW do you do it all?” I laugh it off and make a joke and secretly congratulate myself for appearing like I have my life together.
Here’s the REAL truth: I’m a hot mess. My house is NOT perfect. Most of the time there are amazon boxes blocking the front door, dishes in the sink, and little girl’s socks and shoes EVERYWHERE. My furniture is NOT all designer quality, some of it is mis-matched things picked up from Facebook marketplace or hand-me-down and I CANNOT get the dog to stay off the sofa. By the way did I mention that my house is TINY?? As in 5 people and a dog living in 1600 sf. Tiny. And outside have chickens and a half-dug pool and a long list of unfinished projects.
I worry a LOT. I worry about work, about money, about my kids, about my husband, about irrational things like my baby swallowing a magnet, about the little lines on my face and gray hairs that keep appearing out of NOWHERE, about my wine and caffeine intake, All of it! But do you know what really helps?
MORE WINE.
Just kidding. What helps me is having a plan and trusting the process. Whenever I start to feel like I am absolutely LOSING MY MIND (which is at least once a week) here is how I cope. I hope these tips help you too:
Write it down. Sometimes we feel stressed because there are SOOOO many things, but reality is usually a different story. Take a moment and do a “brain-dump”. Write down all of the things you need to do, all the things that are bugging you or that you want to change, and all of the things that are keeping you up at night. Just get it OUT of your head, in no particular order (we will get to that later) It might look like this: get groceries, discovery call 12:00, deadline Thursday, Should I get Botox?, need to revisit Budget, the livingroom rug is gross, should we get a robot vacuum? Husband needs new glasses; do I really like that tile for that one client? I need to lose weight, are my kids happy at school?
Seriously, just try to capture every thought that is rolling through your brain and write it down until you literally can’t think of another thing. You may be surprised that your list is shorter than you thought, theres one small bit of relief already. (Pro-tip, keep your brain dump list on your nightstand so if a thought wakes you up in the night you can write it down and go back to sleep)Categorize: take that brain dump list and categorize and rank it. Put all your “stuff” into boxes. Start with the “To-do in the next 14 days” items. Rank them in terms of urgency and importance and go ahead and put them in your calendar or planner. Now you can focus on the long term vision. Make long-term categories for Home, Self, relationships, money, kids, etc, and rank them in terms of urgency and importance. Move the urgent items to your 14 day list and schedule them.
Example: Robot vacuum would fall under Home and likely not all that important whereas your kid getting bullied at school would fall under Kids and probably be pretty urgent, so go ahead and block out time to handle it.
Visualize what your life will look like when all of these things are “solved” and use this to determine ranking. Don’t make the mistake of thinking just because something isn’t essential to your ability to survive that it isn’t important, those nagging thoughts keep you from being the best version of yourself. If you can’t get through the day without being upset about your gray hair, then that’s a pretty important thing to solve! Girl go get that hair appointment (or at least amazon some cover-up) So you can get back to LIVING YOUR LIFE!!! We women, and especially mothers, have a terrible habit of putting ourselves last, but I encourage you not to do this. You will be a better wife/boss/partner/mom/friend once you solve these issues that are affecting your daily mood and confidence.Make a plan. Make a game plan for each category. For kids, make a plan on scheduling a parent teacher conference plus a 1 day shopping trip to buy bigger clothes and to spend time checking in. You already have a list now of all the topics you need to cover at each “meeting”. For all your home stuff, make a comprehensive list of all the things you want to change, make a budget and timeline for when you can do them (engaging a design firm can help you create a REAL plan with numbers and timeline and renderings to give you a visual)
Notice I didn’t say, “now jump right into fixing everything” If you are feeling overwhelmed, there is likely way too much on your list to tackle all at once, and its probably cost and time prohibitive. Just make a prioritized plan for now, having a plan will give you more relief than you realize, I promise that you will instantly feel better, even though you haven’t actually solved the issues yet. With a plan, you now have a visual for how you are going to reach your goals, and you will be less worried about “never” attaining them.Make a budget for time and money. These plans aren’t free. Each step has an associated cost in time, money, and energy (or all three). It may not cost you anything to call your child’s teacher, but its going to take at least 1-2 hours to make that happen. Write it down. The home improvements aren’t going to come cheap, but having a home you can be proud of has so much impact on your mental health and family well-being, just make a plan for tackling one room at a time starting with the one that’s bugging you the most. Do not get discouraged if it’s expensive or going to take a long time, just set a realistic budget for time and money and start taking it one step at a time.
Start scheduling. Treat these action plans as if they were work meetings. You know how long its going to take you to do each step so start scheduling it in your calendar. Fill your calendar with the deadlines over the next 14 days and use the remainder of your time to fill in these longer term goals.
A good rule of thumb for time budgeting is 80/20. Don’t fill your time 100%, its just not realistic. Things come up, meetings run long, knees get scraped, people drop in unexpectedly, stuff comes up. Fill your calendar 80% and allow that 20% to be open In face, block out 20% and label it “open” That way when you’re looking for a time to put something you have one reserved. Don’t forget to schedule DAILY self-care time. Yes DAILY. It can be as small as 30 minutes drink a glass of wine while looking at Instagram, or just taking a bath (alone) but put it in the calendar. It will give you something to look forward to every day. I like to use mine as a reward for getting the rest of my list done. If you’re as busy as I am, if it’s not on the calendar, its not going to happen. I schedule everything: workouts, grocery shopping, meetings with clients, lunch with friends, networking events, bills to pay, cooking dinner, every.single.thing.
Once you’ve filled your calendar out as far as you can, take a moment to admire your big fancy organized self, and SHARE it. Share your calendar with your spouse, with your staff, with your mother-in-law, whoever you think needs to know your schedule, share it. (you can select whether to share the event details, your mother-in-law might not need to know about your wine and Instagram time, but she should know not to call you between 9:30-10:00)Get help! Look at your lists and see what you can delegate. Maybe your husband can make all the anniversary plans this year (I know I know, just give him a chance) Maybe it’s time to hire a housekeeper? Maybe use Instacart and amazon instead of going to the store personally? For every item you can delegate, adjust your time/money budget, delegating usually means more money, but it almost always pays off in the time category (and if it doesn’t, reconsider delegating) And if you need help delegating that home-list, hit us up! We’d love to help.
Trust the process. You aren’t going to get there overnight, but having this clear vision will free your mind. You are telling yourself, “yes, this is important, and we will get there”. Try to accomplish 1 step every day. Get after it and stay after it. Check things off your list as you accomplish them and take some time to sit back and admire your progress here and there.
Repeat. This list is not finite. It changes and grows constantly. Every time you feel yourself getting overwhelmed again, repeat the process. Re-evaluate the importance of each item from the previous list, re-evaluate the budget and what you can delegate, decide whether time/energy or money is more important right now (they trade places often!) Monitor your progress, if you’re feeling discouraged about not getting all the things on your list done, maybe you need to reconsider what “done” looks like. Maybe your kids don’t have to wear a bow every single day, Maybe some nights you order takeout or make macaroni and cheese for dinner, maybe sometimes “ok” is good enough. Re-evaluate and do this exercise often. I do my BIG long term brain-dump once a quarter to set my goals, and a miniature planning version EVERY week.
If you’d like to take it one step further, PM me for the spreadsheet I use to manage my priority list. (yes, I use a spreadsheet, don’t knock it until you try it)
-MEG WALDROP-
OWNER + PRINCIPAL DESIGNER
