My day starts out at 5:05 a.m. It usually ends around 9:45 p.m.
Between those hours of the day, I’m hit with anything from working out, meal prep, making breakfast, making dinner, picking socks up off the floor, putting in a load of laundry, realizing my son didn’t do his math homework, making a trip to Costco, picking up dry cleaning, answering emails, posting on my business social media….
So you get the point. And I only hit on a few things above. This is my typical day so if you throw in a sick child, a doctor appointment or a surprise appearance by the in-laws who are staying at your house that night…things can get even crazier.
If you’re like me, you’re in the time of your life of crazy. You are a career woman, you maybe own a business, you have kids…maybe a few of them, you’re running your household, your health, your career and your life and somehow, you’re suppose to make it look like you’re doing it all by yourself with no help.
I don’t have the magic formula to make things less hectic. If I did, I wouldn’t be blogging about it. I would have sold it off and I’d be on my private yacht in the Bahamas.
But, after almost 9 years of working for myself and working from home, I’ve found a few little hacks that have helped me survive. Are these going to make sense for you? Maybe. Are they going to be exactly what you need to make your life less hectic? Maybe.
What I’m saying is you need to find what makes sense in your life. If it’s a personal chef and you can afford that, do it! (my dream someday…) If it’s something a simple as ordering takeout every Tuesday…do it!
But here is what I’ve learned and put into my life in the last 9 years that helps me survive as a woman, as a business owner and as a mom. Feel free to take any of these and apply it to your own life.
I Hired a Housecleaner
The main fight the hubs and I would have in our first year of marriage was cleaning the house. I’m a neat freak and clean. He just doesn’t care. So after getting tired of cleaning up after another grown human being for a year (and the arguments that followed), we hired a house cleaner.
Best decision we made. Fights went away. My life was happier.
And as the years have gone on and our incomes have fluctuated and changed, we have always budgeted for a housecleaner.
For me to get my house as clean as I’d like, I’d be cleaning by myself for at minimum 5 hours straight (we have a big house and see note about clean freak above). That’s time I could use billing clients or spending time with my kids. Not cleaning a toilet.
My family knows now that the day Vicki & her crew comes is my favorite day of the month. She could quite possibly be my favorite person in this world. That is maybe an exaggeration. Maybe.
I Hired An Assembler
This is probably something that is specific towards me, being an invitation designer, but think about this for your world too.
When my third kiddo was born, I found myself up late one night not feeding him…not rocking him to sleep…but putting together 150 invitations with ribbon and belly bands. When I was completely exhausted the next day and about on the brink of a melt down, I decided to hire someone to do that for me.
I got to a point with my business that I had a lot of these projects and I didn’t have enough hours in my day to do all the specialty work. So I put an “ad” out on Facebook on a local mom’s group page. I had a lot of interest, but someone I knew actually said she’d be interested.
I hired Karrie that next day. She has an eye for detail, she’s prompt, she comes to my house to pick up and drop off things and she gets the crazy life of a mama of 3 kids. Karrie has been the behind the scenes of my business for about 3 years. She took some time off last wedding season but I was so happy when she said she wanted to dive back in again.
So get yourself a Karrie. However that looks in your life. Figure out what is taking all your time…time you rather spend doing something else…and find someone to help you with that.
I Don’t Go to PTO Meetings
I like the PTO. I’d love to help with my kid’s school PTO. I could get involved, help with events, design some cool stuff….but the problem is I don’t have time. So I don’t go to the meetings. If I go, I’ll find myself volunteering to design the next T-shirt or poster or newsletter or whatever. As bad as that sounds, I’m okay with it.
I learned I can’t always help. So what I’ve done is tried to stay out of situations where I feel I would be willing to say yes. You need a volunteer? I can help. You need a sign for your wedding yet you didn’t hire me to do your invitations? I can help. You need someone to run a non-profit 5K? I can help.
It’s an on-going battle, but if you have trouble saying no (like me), I encourage you to just stay out of situations you may find yourself in where you will say yes.
And be okay with it.
I Meal Plan for the Week
Every Sunday I sit down and plan out our week. I look at what we have going on, who is going to be home or not, and then I list out meals I’ll make each night.
I put together a gameplan for the week and I’ve found that helps me SO MUCH when it comes to meal prep each night. I have the stuff and there is no question on what is for dinner. And since we budget in one night out a week, I can sometimes slip that in there on crazy nights of flag football, volleyball and meetings.
I use this super cute notebook I just found on Amazon. It’s a meal planner and grocery list in one BUT you can tear off one from the other. I live by this thing.
There you go! A few things I do to make my life easier. From a house cleaner to a simple planner, without these my life would be just a little more hectic. Find what you can do in your life to help YOU get through your crazy life.