google-site-verification=ZTYg11mvIYHNbEU2g5SxL9_QHKENf5J6gzQJmMAjvss
Time? Energy? Apathy? We all juggle these 3 elements every day, especially if we have children. Even my friends and family that don't have children tell me that they struggle with the same roadblocks that slow them down and cause them to feel unproductive. Personally, I just went through a season of rest, so I will be the FIRST to tell you that being productive and hustling 24/7 will break you in the end. If, however, you feel ready and able to tackle more in less time, I hope these tips can get you started or at least give you a few ideas. Happy hustling! (in moderation!!!) Here are my top 10 productivity hacks in no particular order:
It is worthwhile to discuss each of these 10 productivity hacks in more detail. Let's dive in!
I hope you have found these tips and tricks to be useful and helpful! Again, do not beat yourself up if you are not being productive 24/7. Rest is SO important and having seasons to lay low and recharge are necessary. Listen to your body. Follow your energy. Godspeed. P.S. Comment below if you try any of these or are already doing some of them! I love interacting with my readers!
0 Comments
Monthly meal planning has taken me YEARS to develop. One thing to note is that there are 3 adults rotating the cooking in my family. My parents live 2 doors down from us and we decided many years ago that it was easier to feed 7 than 2 (for them) and that mom didn't mind cooking for 7 twice a week if it meant she and dad would be fed by us several nights per week. Some weeks that looks different. Since my husband and I both commute about an hour each way to our jobs, and he works night shift, my mom may have to cook 3 times some weeks. Kids' sports and school activities can also affect our cooking rotation. Let's look at monthly meal planning with a few good tips or rules to get you started:
Now let's look at each question in more detail:
Pro tip: track what you are currently eating for a week or two as you are mentally preparing yourself to begin this process. Just like "getting on a budget" - it is extremely helpful to see what you are currently eating as a family. If you are eating out 5 out of 7 nights, it is unfair to expect you will start cooking 5 out of 7 nights immediately. That is a recipe for disaster! Pun intended! Maybe try cooking 3 nights at first. START SMALL! Good luck and just remember: it doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be planned. What does it take to run a household or a life? Why are there so many memes and jokes about "adulting?" Aren't there things we all do every week or are we just wandering through life constantly trying to remember what it is we were supposed to do? It's taken me years and tears, but I finally developed a few systems to decrease my overwhelm. Here is my own personal list of weekly tasks. I don't do these every week, BUT having a list gives me somewhere to start.
I love a good checklist. Give me a task and I will try to complete it. That said, the list above has some nuances and caveats that are worth mentioning to a novice attempting to "get my life together." I did not make that list overnight, AND some of the steps may or may not apply to you. So let's dig deeper!
I know that was a lot of words to describe what sounds like it would be a simple process. It's not simple though, is it? If it were simple, we would all be doing it and no bill would ever be late, no appointment would ever be missed, and no child would ever go to school without their $5 field trip money that was due yesterday. And so I wrote it all down. I still miss things. I don't do this every week, because LIFE. Perfect is a cruel joke and not that fun anyway. So just do what you can and maybe at least one of these tips will bring you a little peace and a little more free time in the end to do what you were called to do. ☀️ I posted this on Instagram in December 2018, so this shows I have been using a weekly review process for years. I like to follow authentic people and my readers might feel the same way. ☀️ Also, in my experience, I can't write or talk about what I don't know about. My 9-year-old though? He can tell the tallest tale you've ever heard! 😜 In order to plan for 2022, I first had to complete my 2021 yearly review. Be sure to block off at least 30 minutes to complete that task. It is a worthy investment of your time. I have detailed each step for the yearly review process here: 2022 planning- what I KNOW for sure is on the books: January
***I did not include my own health appts***. that list is too long 🤪 Once you have crafted your year-at-a-glance, start plugging dates into your Google calendar and/or paper planner. Consider the goals you set during your goal-setting session (my post on goal-setting linked below). Try to plug in some of your goals into your year-at-a-glance during the month in which you think it might occur. Examples include: - Health: run a 5k - go ahead and find a 5k in your area and list it in the month ahead; remind yourself to register in the previous month - Fun: game night with the girls- go ahead and find a Saturday you can host and plug it in your calendar and create the Facebook event so you'll remember to invite people or they can go ahead and save the date - Personal development: book that conference you want to attend, start saving for it, plug it into your calendar, and set a few reminders before the actual conference date, go ahead and ask a friend if you want someone to attend with you -Home: your fence needs to be painted so go ahead and slate the month you plan to do it; plug it into your calendar; get estimates if you're hiring it out or price your own materials if you plan to do it yourself You can see by my rather extensive list that some months are simply TOO BUSY to tackle a home project or Girls Weekend. Looking at your year-at-a-glance in a list format like this is THE BEST way to future-plan in my experience. Calendars are great, but this really shows how crowded some months can be. I can do an entire post on the month of May and its insanity. May and December have become nothing short of a circus for most parents in America, and I happen to have national nurse's day and a child with a birthday that month to boot. Hopefully, this overview of my year-at-a-glance planning technique will give you some clarity for your year ahead. You may skim through my list and think, No Way Jose, I am NOT going to even think about any of that stuff until I need to think about it. As someone who struggles with anxiety, however, I like to know what's ahead of me. Yes, I still have my minutes, hours, days of complete and total overwhelm which end in a long Netflix binge with a bowl of microwave popcorn or some random unnecessary online shopping stint. We each numb in our own ways. 🤪
I encourage you to give this yearly overview planning process a try. 2020 and 2021 were a ball of fear, disappointment, grief, cancelled plans, confused children, learning gaps, and strained marriages and friendships (for many different reasons). We were all cooped up with people we may or may not like doing things we may not have ever done before. We weren't sure who to believe or what to do. I see a light at the end of that horrible tunnel, so maybe a little navigation and forethought will help us all. Godspeed. Part of the reason I keep a planner is because my memory is terrible. Just ask my best friend since third grade. I blame it on nursing and NP school and having to memorize so many drugs and diseases. I also blame it on having lived in four states and meeting several "sets of people" in my lifetime. Anyway, when I sit down to start my year end review, I grab my planner. I repress memories which I am working on in therapy, but I really can’t remember what happened the past year without flipping through each month and glancing at big moments. I am not exactly sure why my brain is like that, but it is and yours may be too? Sometimes my mind is blown when I look at everything that happened in my personal or professional or emotional life in one calendar year. How do we survive with the pace and the demands of the world today? When is enough enough? Everyone I know feels like they’re drowning with all the work deadlines, projects, meetings, kids' activities, sports, and that's not even accounting for the emotional toll the past 2 years have taken on every single one of us. When I look back over 2021 in my own life, the following events come to light:
As I look back over the events of 2021, it often sparks me to plan and reserve trips or experiences for 2022. My manager also loves that I give her my days off for the entire year in December or January. I realize you might not be able to do this, but it actually reduces my anxiety knowing in January when I will be off throughout the year. If I am having an extremely stressful season / week / month, I already know the upcoming days of rest that are scheduled. My patients appreciate it too... less moving and rearranging (sorry for those reading this- 2021 was rough on my schedule!). 🤪 Sitting down and performing a yearly review also gives me reassurance or reminders of certain events I do NOT want to attend or participate in again. It helps me to identify what was life-giving and what was life-draining. That clarity is HUGE. You'll notice I did not list the following (but they all also happened): hurt feelings, miscommunication, personal growth, continued grief, strained conversations, burnout, apathy, frustration, disdain, regret, fear, hopelessness, anger, and anxiety. While I am not listing those publicly, they are named on my heart and mind. Thanks to counseling, I am trying not to wear them inside my body (The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD). I am intentionally working to process and let go as I go instead of swallowing or shoving it down, or worse- spewing it out. This is hard work. This is a big deal. So I encourage you as we wrap up 2021 and enter 2022, to sit down and block off a good 30 minutes to yourself. Scroll through your planner or your Google Calendar or your Facebook pictures and think about the past 12 months. What felt good? What felt icky? Who gave you energy when you were around them? Who made you feel bad about yourself? What habits added to your life? What subtracted? Look at your screen time averages on your phone. Maybe set a goal to lower those. A fellow blogger in my writer's group wrote a piece about our children remembering us looking at our phones instead of looking at their faces. LET THAT SINK IN FOR A MINUTE. I may write a piece about goal-setting and planning for the year ahead, but I would be a sham if I told you I set any goals for 2021. I didn't even know I would start writing this year. This nudge just got so big in July that I just started (oh yeah, I forgot our trip to Birmingham this summer). I was in a hotel room in Birmingham with keyed-up pre-teens, a snoring husband (love you babe), and a laptop staring at me. I had to process all this STUFF and it just started. So just start. Even if you only take the next 2-5 minutes to reflect on 2021. I beg of you to do it. So many of us are just sleepwalking through life. Work. Supper. Kids. TV. Bed. Repeat. Weekend. And repeat again. Let us all try some self-evaluation, life-evaluation, emotional-evaluation. What is life-giving and what is life-draining? What brings you joy? The only person keeping me from writing was ME. What will YOU allow yourself to do in 2022? Godspeed. Once you have decided on a planner, you will immediately start thinking of ways to use the Notes Pages in the back of the planner. Below, I show you pages from my own planners over the years. Some of the other ways I have used my notes pages include:
📝 ✍️ Happy planning!!! 📒📚
As a family nurse practitioner, I see moms, dads, grandparents, and kids every day in my office. One of the most common questions I encounter with my pediatric patients comes from frustrated, defeated parents or grandparents. HOW CAN I GET MY CHILD TO EAT VEGETABLES? Here is the tried-and-true method I've used with my own children to get them to eat vegetables (and other healthy foods):
Let's discuss each tip in more detail. There are some things you need to know before you begin.
If you are reading this article thinking that I am judging you, I am not by any means. I think all mothers and fathers are doing the best they can when they can where they are in life. You decided that you want to work on Johnny's diet, and you looked for help. I decided I could not lie to you and give you what you wanted to read. You need the truth! These tips have worked in my house and in HUNDREDS of homes of my patients throughout my career. Good luck Mom or Dad! You can do this!!! I am cheering for you! I'm waving broccoli and carrots at you from Georgia!
So, how in the world do I plan meals for an entire month? As I mentioned in my previous post, monthly meal planning has taken me YEARS to develop. One thing to note is that there are 3 adults rotating the cooking in my family. My parents live 2 doors down from us and we decided many years ago that it was easier to feed 7 than 2 (for them) and that mom didn't mind cooking for 7 twice a week if it meant she and dad would be fed by us several nights per week. Some weeks that looks different. Since my husband and I both commute about an hour each way to our jobs, and he works night shift, my mom may have to cook 3 times some weeks. Kids' sports and school activities can also affect our cooking rotation. Let's look at monthly meal planning with a few good tips or rules to get you started:
Now let's look at each question in more detail:
Good luck and just remember:
it doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be planned. Meal planning changed my life. Just like my pharmacology professor taught me in NP school, I started “slow and low.” By that I mean that I planned a few days at a time. My boys were probably 1, 3, and 11 when I quickly realized everyone wanted to eat every night and I had 2 of the 3 eating regular food. I was commuting 2 hours a day, managing a full panel of family practice patients, and trying to navigate diapers, bottles, potty-training, and 5th grade all at the same time. I was crying frequently and having palpitations on my drive home trying to figure out what was for dinner. I’m not exaggerating, I was a mess and wondered how every other mom could get it all done. Every other mom was smiling on social media and making brownies and family dinners and had clean houses and perfect marriages. I felt like a giant failure. I knew there had to be a better way.
Now that my kids are 9, 11, and 19 I know that all those social media posts I was consuming were (dare I say) a big fat lie. No one has it all or does it all. It is simply not possible. Motherhood, marriage, and career are all extremely demanding and HARD. They each require huge amounts of effort and compromise. Time management and planning can certainly help but managing (and FEEDING) a family in today’s world is tough. Over the years, I’ve gone from planning a few days of suppers to one week at a time to now an entire month at a time. Yes, ONE MONTH at a time. I have been doing it for 8 years, so my monthly meal planning sessions usually take me about an hour. That one hour per month saves me so many panic attacks and profanities. The boys know that meals are posted on the fridge door and they never really complain about what’s for dinner because they know it’s non-negotiable. I will make a separate blog post about the money I have saved by meal planning, but I simply wanted to introduce the concept and the real reasons WHY I started doing it. I didn’t start meal planning because I was an overachiever or planner-extraordinaire. I was a crying, overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, new mom (I inherited my oldest just a year before my first was born) who was desperate for help. Meal planning may not be for you, but if it is- I am here to help. |