How do you "do it"?

So our little peanut started preschool this week.

Yes, I know I already did a post about that.

This was the first week EVER that mommy had any time without children. 

Can I admit something? It was bizarre. I missed my kiddos. 

Can I admit something else? I was a better mom, better wife, and better business woman this week than I have been in a LONG time. 

I was more productive this week at The Monkey's Treehouse. I was able to make dinners and pack Mr. Incredible's meals for work. I was able to help kids with their homework and fill out papers and tote little monkeys to activities. I was even able to get Belle and Bean's birthday party set for today without major stress. It was easier this week, but I've always done these things. 

"How do you do it?" I get asked this at least 5 times a day. And there have absolutely been days where I answer, "I don't friggin know...I just know that I do."

So I came up with some of the things that help me. Here they are for your use.   

Lists. I got organized and made lists. I like to use either paper or dry erase boards for my lists. If I'm out and about and think of something I need to do, I put it in my phone and then add it to my physical lists later. There is something much more satisfying about crossing something off a list than just pressing a button to delete it. 

Mindfulness. Do you realize how much of your day you spend doing just about nothing? You're not actually doing nothing but...you check your email, see someone updated a post on Facebook. You go on Facebook, and 30 minutes later you're on Pinterest looking at kitchens because a friend posted a recipe on Facebook that linked to Pinterest and it reminded you that someday you want to paint your kitchen. Pay attention to how you spend your time. There is something to be said for taking 30 minutes to relax and peruse Pinterest, but not necessarily when you're supposed to be working. 

ODAT. What the heck does that mean? It means take things One ever-loving Day At a Time. Yes, I plan things out weeks (sometimes months) in advance and my calendar is color coded (We use the Cozi app and I absolutely love it). But I can't worry about how I am going to get the kids fed and to all of their activities in the spring when I have to worry about how I'm going to make dinner and get the kids to their appointments tonight. I try to take things as they come. I wasn't always like this. I was a worrier. What's going to happen when the schedule changes and then there might be a conflict? You can't live like that with 5 kids...you can't live like that with ANY kids. If you spend all of your time and energy on worrying what will happen next week or next month...you won't have any energy left to do what matters today. Take things one day at a time and go easy on yourself. 

Make time. There are 168 hours in a week. Every person has that same 168 hours at their disposal. Use them. Yes, you need to sleep, eat, work, and have time for self care. These should be part of your schedule (yes, even self care...especially self care). The rest of your time is yours. Plan it out if you need to. Yes, it's a lot. But time is your power. Use your powers wisely. 

Lastly, Breathe. Light candles if you like that sort of thing...and Breathe. Be sure to take care of yourself so that you can be your best you for those that need you. 

There are days that are rough. Days that I finally get the kids in bed and I think to myself "how the heck did we survive today?" But then I stop and I pat myself on the shoulder because ya know what? We did. We survived. It may not have been pretty, and hopefully tomorrow will be better, but we survived. 

Try out these tips this week and have fun "doing it"!

To the mom-preneur/WAHM who feels like she's drowning...

Water, walls, kids, husband, in laws, parents, friends, clients, bills...
it doesn't matter what it is - it all feels like it's closing in.
There is a serious lack of oxygen in your personal bubble.
You feel like you're drowning in your very own life.

The life that you fought so hard for.

The life that you desperately wanted.

Your mind is filled with "Is this really what I want? This isn't what I thought it would be. Maybe I should just give this up? But I fought so hard to get here."

Your inbox may be filled with "Hey! I found this really great job opportunity for you."

You feel like everyone is waiting for you to fail. You feel like the success you are reaching for is out of reach...perhaps that you are not worth that success.

It's a lot. I hear you. It's overwhelming.

But do me a favor...stop and breathe for a second. I'm serious. Take a deep, belly expanding, full body breath. Now let it go. All of it.

Now listen...I've been there...some moments, I still am there...but those moments are less and less.

Here's what I've learned:

- You are the only one waiting for you to fail. I'm serious. Many small business owners get in their own way and self-sabotage their way right into burnout. I was chatting with fellow mom-preneur, mindset coach, Kimberly Lin Pollard aka "The Troll Tamer" today and she said something that really resonated for me. She told me "Remind yourself that the trolls in your head are lying little jerks who are too lazy to pack up their stuff to move under a bridge in a new comfort zone." Nothing about starting a new business is easy or even comfortable really. You have to work hard and push out of your comfort zone to get where you want to be. You won't get there by staying where you are.

- You are SO worth it. Part of building a successful business is knowing that you are deserving and worth the success that it will bring. Knowing that sometimes, the best way to be productive, is to schedule time for self-care. When we take care of ourselves, we are better prepared to take care of the people around us, and we show the people around us that we are worth being taken care of. Because honestly, if you don't care about you...why should other people? Show them you are worth it by showing yourself you are worth it. This creates a better dynamic with those in your life, whether they be family, friends, or clients.

-You CAN do it. Breathe deep. Take one day, one hour, one project at a time. Be organized. Be calm. Be deliberate with everything you do. Brain dump whenever you can (you can read more about my brain dumping experience here). Know you are worth it. Know that you are the only one standing in your way.

So tonight, after your kids are in bed, when you are trying to figure out where to start and that drowning feeling starts to set in...breathe.

You CAN breathe. You CAN be successful. You WILL be successful.
The only way to fail, is to give up.

Photo courtesy of http://galleryhip.com/michael-david-adams-underwater.html

***For more motivation check out "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten. It will make you cry the first time and then it will kick your butt into gear. I have been known to have it on loop when there are hard days.

Ready, set, ....

Did you finish that sentence?
Did you finish it with "Go!"?

If you did, you don't have a "youngest baby" that just started school today.

Yup. Peanut had her first day of school today. She looks devastated right?

I have been fortunate enough to always be home with my monkeys. Even when I had to work outside the home, they always came with me (I was a bus driver for some time there), or they stayed with friends/family. Now that I run The Monkey's Treehouse, I am able to stay home with them as well. They never went to daycare. Not even for a day. They spent MAYBE 2 hours a day, if that, at the childcare center at our local YMCA (which we adore). So today was huge. I was nervous but Mr. Incredible and I knew she needed this. We knew she was ready. I'll be damned if we knew just how ready she was.  

Last night was a rough one in our house, but I was hopeful at 230am to get a little bit of sleep before the alarm went of at 6. Well, as I was dozing off, a very excited Peanut came about 2 inches from my nose and went "MAMA! I go to school today! Let's go! Get up!".

Hate to break it to you sweetheart but I'm pretty sure your teachers weren't there at 4am. 

Anyways, Peanut and Bugaboo go to the same school. He started last week as a Kindergartner. So he "knows his way around" the school. Peanut spent all day yesterday making him "pomise (promise)" to walk her to class this morning. It was adorable. Funny thing is though, come this morning, she didn't even give him a chance! Those doors opened this morning (it's a parents-stay-outside-if-at-all-possible drop off situation), mommy got half a one-armed hug, and off she went. She left Bugaboo in the dust going "I thought she wanted me to bring her to her class mom?" 

As I said, she was ready. 

So what is the point of all of this besides showing you more ridiculously cute pictures of our monkeys (see below)? The point is, we need to trust our kids. Even the 3 year olds. They know what they need and they will tell you if you listen. You may have to listen in a different way than you're used to, but they will tell you.  

Are you ready? Are you set? Go. 

Go listen to what your kids are telling you. 

Because at some point, 

THEY are going to be ready, 

THEY will be set, 

and THEY will go...and when that time comes, you might not be as ready as you thought.

More ridiculously cute pictures from this morning:

What do you look for?

What do you look for?

Seems like a simple enough question, but there are so many different directions to go with that question and the answers would not be at all similar.

For example:

Q: What do you look for in a home?
A: I look for enough space for our rather large family, yard space for the monkeys to play, a well-run/well-rated school system, and a safe location.

Those answers would not make as much sense if I said "What do you look for in a work space?".

But what happens when your home becomes your work space? Things overlap. You get distracted. There is school work, with business work, with paper work, with receipts...add to that children's toys, headbands, junk mail, bills, and some photos and you have a pretty good summary of what my desk usually (and currently) looks like.

When your work space is cluttered, you allow your thoughts to clutter your brain "work space" if you will. This is how we, as work-at-home parents, end up with 2700 different half done projects (yes, this is even true for the multi-tasking mommas...sorry ladies. I'm right there with ya but...we have to be honest with ourselves.) This is how our day (okay, morning) ends up looking something like this:

Wake up
Boil water for coffee
Make breakfast for kids
"Sit on your bum in the chair please"
Get drinks for the kids
"PLEASE sit down"
Continue making breakfast
"Get off the table, please"
Reply to customer email
Notice notifications from Facebook during response to email and check Facebook
See something cool on Pinterest
Realize that you have no idea what to make for dinner
Sit down to try and meal plan (who are you kidding...just trying to plan A meal)
"Mom! Peanut spilled her drink and it's all over her!"
Get towels to clean up spill
Realize that the water for coffee has been boiling for a while
Make coffee
Make a mental note to make a slideshow about your super cool coffee hack (coming soon)
Text that friend that you have been meaning to set a coffee date up with
Check calendars for school events, meetings, and deadlines for the business
"Would you PLEASE put your clothes on!"
Realize that you haven't had a chance to get out of pajamas yourself
Listen to monkeys screaming like banshees while you get "dressed" in 6.5 seconds

   

You get the idea. That's a pretty normal morning around here. Overwhelming. (And yet, I love every minute.)

Your business should not overwhelm you. Your business should be your passion. Unfortunately though, even passionate business owners (and parents) can get burnt out. Neither one makes for a happy person.

To be honest, the clutter in my brain was making it so that the 2700 half-done projects were from home, work, and play. By the time my monkeys went to bed I felt like I worked all day and got absolutely nothing done. It was like being on a hamster wheel. I was tired.

I was perusing Facebook looking for more marketing opportunities to advertise The Monkey's Treehouse, and a sponsored ad came up for a business enrichment opportunity: Fired Up and Focused: 21 Day Challenge run by the lovely Racheal Baxter Cook. I clicked. I read. I joined...almost immediately. Now, I'm only on Day 2, and already I am more productive. Obviously these glorious 2 days has not been enough to show me a financial gain from this productivity and I still have quite a ways to go...but let me say, these last 2 days have been less overwhelming and more productive. Today's exercise was especially helpful in de-cluttering my brain.

It's called a brain dump. Try it. Grab a paper and pen/pencil. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Spend 15 minutes writing EVERYTHING you need to do. No matter how big or small it is; whether it's for business or pleasure, home or work...write it all down. When the timer goes off, take a couple minutes to write down anything else in your brain that needs to get done. Once it is all on paper, you can prioritize what is Urgent and Important (you want to eventually get to a point that this list is minimal), what is Urgent and Not-Important (necessary but you want to systematize these as soon as possible), Not-Urgent but Important (this is where most of your tasks should lie...this is where you will be most productive), and Not-Urgent and Not-Important (if nothing bad will happen by getting rid of these tasks...do that. Because quite frankly we all have enough to deal with daily.)

Now this brain dump was part of a business exercise, but what if you applied it to your life? If you were less overwhelmed and less cluttered, would you be less stressed? More able to focus on relationships with loved ones? Less anxious that not everything will get done? What have you got to lose? Besides loads of stress, of course.

This week, try and "dump your brain" at least once. Pay attention to how you feel before and in the days following.

I have been looking for calm, for clarity, for peace of mind. I believe that organizing life like this can get me there.

The question is, what do YOU look for?

(Image of monkeys on the bed courtesy of: www.clipartsheep.com)

It's been a while...

Good morning and welcome back to our treehouse!

We got swamped with orders and back to school shenanigans.

Four out of our five monkeys started school this week; Peanut starts next week. So far they have had a great week! Their teachers seem wonderful and they are all having a great time.

I think what took the longest (aside from the yearly mountain of paperwork) was writing our yearly beginning of school emails to the teachers. Every year, we write an email to each teacher explaining each individual child's strengths and areas of improvement. We also explain a little bit of their background and open the door to communication. If you want your child to be successful at school, they have to know that you care enough to contact their teachers. Our monkeys know that good days or bad, we will hear about it. Even our middle school teachers get emails. This is not just at the beginning of the year though, I am a crazy-person and email our teachers regularly to keep tabs on the monkeys and make sure that we are all on the same page. Let me tell you, the good teachers-appreciate it! Having been a teacher before I had kids, I know what it's like to have a kid in your class that you know nothing about and try to connect with them. Especially if they have a lot of transitions going on in their home lives...it makes it even harder. Knowing what they are coming from makes a teacher's job easier. It also lets them know that you are involved and invested in your monkey(s).

Another thing I do to ensure a smooth year, is I "grease the wheels". Yes, I am talking gifts. Nothing elaborate, just gifts of appreciation throughout the year. Between all 5 of our monkeys, there are usually anywhere from 17-25 gifts that go to school and usually my cost is under $20 for all of it. Now these gifts are not in any way shape or form a bribe. They are simply a thoughtful token of our appreciation for the time and efforts they spend on our monkeys. On the first day of school, our monkeys were all sent to school with homemade chocolate chip cookies (I love this recipe) that were wrapped in wax paper, then scrapbook paper, and tied with a string and the tag below. Last year's gifts included baked goods, flower writers, hand scrubs, personalized tumblers, and custom dry erase boards. The teachers very much appreciate the gifts and are more willing to go the extra mile for our monkeys when asked. Trust me, it works. (For our fans that attend regular IEP or 504 meetings, baked goods go a long way there too.)

I have to get our monkeys to school, but enjoy the day folks! Think about what you would like to tell your child's teacher about your monkey...maybe write a short email...or bake cookies. Appreciate the people that spend all day with your children. Your appreciation for them, makes an impact on your children's education.

Have a wonderful day!