A friend recently asked me the question, “How do you do it all?
I responded by shrugging my shoulders and laughing. It was the only thing I could do other than cry.
Because that has to be the furthest thing from the truth. Because when it comes to my job, my business, and my family, I often think I am failing more often than not.
For any working mother out there, you know the whole work/life balance struggle is real. Add a side business to the equation, and you start to feel like a duck on some serious steroids - everything seems calm on the surface, but underneath you are paddling like crazy to just stay afloat.
But, I gave the question some thought and realized that over the last year, my mindset about how I get work done has shifted. Here’s what I came up with:
Recognize the magnitude of what you are doing.
Working full time, raising a family, and starting a business are not easy things to do when you’re doing them independently, much less when you’re doing them all at once. These are all major life “things” that take a lot of time, energy, and effort and you’re not going to be able to do everything you want every day. It's been hard, but I've started to accept that as fact. And, I'm okay with that because I know that I'm still chipping away at it even if I'm not going as fast I'd like.
Acknowledge how productive you really are.
It wasn’t until this past year that I realized that even on my least productive day, I am more productive than most people. Now, I don’t have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I think those who know me can probably attest to the fact that I do what I say I'm going to do and I get shit done when I say I'm going to get it done. Period.
And, I'm not the only one. When it comes getting shit done, moms are the best. Regardless of how unproductive or disorganized you were before kids, having kids has somehow turned us all into these amazing super productive, multi-tasking superheroes. It's time we all took comfort in how much shit we get done on a daily basis and what can happen when we all work together.
Organize your work into blocks of time.
I’ve started categorizing my day into 4 categories that relate to my life (Keyword, day job, family time, personal stuff) and I strive to allocate a bit of time to each of those categories every day. That ensures that I am getting a little bit of work done each day as it relates to each of these areas. I have also started setting up blocks of time for each of those categories because I can’t help but get wrapped up in a project and the next thing I know, it's 3 am and I have to be up in 3 hours.
Now, I've got to admit that I’m not always successful with this. In fact, I more often fail at this goal (see my first point) than not. But, bucketing my activities makes me feel more accomplished and that's half the battle. And, when life (and kids) get in the way, I just have to accept it and try again the next day.
Get some sleep.
I’m a big sleeper so I can’t emphasize this enough, but you aren’t doing yourself any favors by staying up late and waking up early trying to get all the things done. When I forego sleep, I immediately notice the effects - the quality of my work declines, I have a harder time focusing, and it takes me longer to do anything. Not to mention the crabiness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to redo work as a result of sleep deprivation. It’s just not worth it.
Manage your to-do list.
If you’re anything like me, your to-do list rules your life. I live by the motto: “If it doesn’t get on the list, it’s not going to happen.” My list also dictates our weekends which is why Mark has a love/hate relationship with my lists. But, there are two things I’ve learned about to-do lists: if you have multiple lists, you don’t have great insight into the holistic picture of everything that needs to get done and lists can make you unnecessarily busy. My advice is to work off of one master list, cut the list in half, and eliminate the things that don't matter (like organizing your closet).
I also love the app, Todoist. You can put all your tasks into one master list and then you can sort by due date or type of project.
Find the hidden time.
I'm the type of person that makes use of every second of the day so I've been able to find extra time in my daily life to get things done. It turns out that my commuting time is one of the best times to get a lot of miscellaneous things done like responding to emails or returning phone calls, listening to podcasts, brainstorming ideas, or managing my to-do list (see above).
Find time for yourself.
More easily said than done, right? You will drive yourself insane if you don’t ever take a break so figure out a release and schedule time for it just like you would for an important meeting. For me, that’s working out. Even though working out takes time, at the end of the day, I am less stressed out, I have more energy, and I get my best thinking done during a good work out so I consider it to be an extra productive use of my time.
So, there you have it. I still don't do it all, but I've changed my mindset and made a few minor changes to how I manage my time and it's made all the difference.
How do you balance your time? Share your ideas in the Comments section. I can't wait to hear from you!
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This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post.