Call me crazy but it is more common than not, to feel overwhelmed as a stay-at-home-working-mom. Whether you are a mom blogger, own an Etsy shop, work for a company virtually, or just want to be able to balance mom time with time to yourself, it is a feat to get to middle ground where all your time is dispersed in a way that is actually effective. As a mom it becomes really important to us to go above and beyond and to push ourselves even harder in order to get the things that we want.
If you are like me, then you are a go-getter, goal setter, list maker, and reach-for-the-sky kind of person. Before I had kids I would wake up each morning, to-do list in hand, and start my day off at zero so that I wasn’t satisfied until I hit ten. I am the kind of person that cannot think straight or be productive until everything is done and I am “caught up” with everything. I always have the need to feel like I have a clean slate… the entire house is deep cleaned, I have two weeks of blog content drafted and ready to publish, I am showered, shaved, tanned, fully groomed, the kids are groomed, rested, fed, and ready for super organized mom to start their morning with singing and dancing… For some reason I like to make these ridiculous baseline expectations for myself. I have this need to be in full control and to be the best at it all so that I can feel sure and confident in myself. Because until then I cannot truly relax. Does this sound familiar?
I have been talking to many of my mommy friends and I am finding out that I am not alone and that this is a very common issue among moms, SAHM, working moms, and side hustle moms. There is SO MUCH to do and so little time to do it in. We find ourselves halfway doing many things instead of fully focusing on and doing one thing at a time and doing it our very best. I have to beg the question, do our children suffer for it? It doesn’t feel good to think that we are working so hard to do our very best and instead we are working so hard that we really aren’t doing a great job at anything at all. That is not how I want to live and it certainly is not healthy for any mom to have that kind of stress hanging over them all the time! At the end of the day our children come first, and they feed off of our energy. We need to be happy and healthy so that our children can be happy and healthy! I can say for myself, that in order to feel fully happy and healthy I need to be in control of all the things and have my world in perfect order.
SO… how can we as moms get to a point where we are able to balance our lives in a way that is healthy and productive? The answer is not to continue to push ourselves to the max, the answer is actually to slow down, and today I am sharing how I get organized so I can still be an insanely productive and successful mommy blogger and not ignore my kids.
Small Disclaimer: I am writing this from a standpoint of I do not have it all figured out myself, but I recognize this as a very common issue and (even for myself) I wanted to do some research on and share a solution that us moms can do to make life easier on ourselves. I am sharing because I want to help other mommas like me to find peace in knowing there are answers, we just have to act on them, we are not alone and we all struggle, and that one day we’ll look back at this time in our lives and wish we could have it all back. This is a way to soak up every moment we have right now before they are all gone, and feel happy about it all along the way.
Balanced Time & Organized Chaos
Truly and honestly getting organized is the most important thing you can do. I will be frank here and tell you that I have been trying to get organized since my second daughter Ella was born…and she is 3 months old today! I have always been a list maker and I have always found them to be very beneficial. It is not easy, however, to get everything written up and drawn out for success if you are either constantly interrupted or simply too tired to do it properly.
When I do finally get down to business and get organized, it looks something like the picture above. I was finally able to get this done over the weekend and it is amazing how good it feels! It is funny but I didn’t get one thing on my to do list done, but completing this task of getting organized gave me more satisfaction then I have had in months. This is because I was able to put everything that I needed to do and all the things I need to do every day/week/month in one HUGE list and slowly break them down into lists of priority, and then plug them into a calendar spaced out in a way that makes it all attainably doable in a stress-free way. This is what I use to do every season before I had kids. For the first time in months I feel almost complete relief because of it.
How do I do it you ask? It is a sort of Marie Kondo method, I call it kondoing my life. Let me break it down for you.
- Step 1: Get a notebook and at the top of each page title it with a category name of things that have to be done, and then list everything you have to do for each category under the title. For example; Cleaning: bathrooms, master, kitchen, living room, garage….etc (I like to break my cleaning up into room versus tasks), Blog: research, draft posts, edit, promotion….etc, Kids: learning numbers, outings, nap times, meal times…etc, Me Time: shower, shave, read a book…etc, Household Responsibilities: Maintenance, grocery shopping, errands…etc… this is an example of what my lists are like. The point is to write everything down.
- Step 2: Grab a new sheet of paper and title it PRIORITIES and in order list each category according to its importance. For example; Kids, Me Time, Blog, Home Responsibilities….etc... This step is so you can see, in order, what matters to you most and you can list the to-dos under each prioritized category first, second, third and so on, tackling the lowest priority list last and giving it the least amount of your time.
- Step 3: Grab a poster board and markers and get to work breaking down each day of the week by writing down what needs to be done at what times and in what order from each of your category lists. So let’s say your day starts at 6am when your kids wake up. Pick a color and write MONDAY, 6am 1st kid wakes up, 6:30am 2nd kid wakes up, 8am breakfast, 8:30am quiet time & check emails… so on so forth. The goal is to see your entire day at a birds eye view and utilize your open windows of time for the ultimate productivity.** I know that every evening after my kids are in bed I want to spend from 7pm-8pm on my blog, so I spaced out each to-do from my blog category list and each night I chose a different task to tackle… Monday-draft blog post, Tuesday-promotion, Wednesday-Pinterest…etc (I did the same thing for weeks and months too! For cleaning I know I do not need to clean the formal areas every week so I put that down for Saturdays every third week…etc)
**A good way to explain this is Instagram. As a blogger I am on Instagram a lot, and honestly TOO MUCH. But in order to be successful and grow, using Instagram is an important tool. I needed a new way to approach it so that I am maximizing my time on Instagram but also not allowing it to take over my life. So When I made my category lists I made Instagram a category all on it’s own. I need to take photos, draft captions, engage…etc Looking at my days and weeks I wanted to prioritize my time on social media for the benefit of my blog, but I was not going to prioritize it over my kids. So I decided that I would post in the morning before my kids get up, 3 times a day I would spend 15 minutes engaging during quiet times and nap times, and once a week I would take and schedule the photos. Anything above and beyond that was no longer a priority and I was satisfied with that. OK boom Instagram done, whats next..
- Step 4: Once this poster is all filled out, every single thing from your excessive amounts of to-do lists should be on it somewhere, and you should now be able to take all your category lists and priority list and throw them away. Hang the poster board up somewhere you can see it everyday (Or transfer it to a smaller planner or calendar if you wish) and FOLLOW IT!
Do this and I promise you, you will feel better! Hire a sitter, go to Starbucks or the park, pull out poster boards, notebooks, markers and pens, and go to town…. The goal of this is not have an end-all-be-all solution to being overwhelmed. You will be overwhelmed again, schedules will change, responsibilities will change, and things will get messy again. But this practice is one that can be done again and again, and it is simply a way to get organized and in control right now, next season, every year, and forever. For me, that is all I need.