How to Get Your Free Time Back as a SAHM

10.17.2018 by Marie // Leave a Comment

How much free time would you say that you have? If you’re like most moms, chances are you didn’t even answer with a time estimate. Instead, it is much more likely you answered with a half-cynical laugh. It’s time to change that answer and find out how to get your free time back as a SAHM.

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Do you let out a half-cynical laugh when asked how much free time you have? It’s time to change that and find out how to get your free time back as a SAHM. Click To Tweet

Early this year, I did a time inventory. If you haven’t done one, I totally recommend it. A time inventory works much like tracking your spending only you note what you do with your time during the day.

When I did mine, I was more than a little shock at the time I spent watching television. The reason I never noticed was because I never simply sit and watch TV. Instead, I was always doing other tasks while watching it. Maybe I was folding laundry or trying to write a post. Either way, it seemed the TV was consuming a lot more of my time than I wanted.

So I made a promise with myself that I would only watch things once my important tasks for the day were done. Do you know what I found? The tasks that usually took me hours could be accomplished in closer to 20-30 minutes when my attention wasn’t divided. That’s an extra hour and a half to devote to other tasks and activities in my day!

Imagine what you could get done with an extra hour or 2 in your day! If this seems like a pipe dream, keep reading to find out tactics to get your free time back as a SAHM.

Let Go of Perfection

Too often we can get caught up in trying to do things perfectly. Letting go of that perfection is the perfect starting point when you’re trying to find extra time in your day. For example, getting the laundry folded quickly is more important than double folding then rolling all of those bath towels. (By the way, this is something that I struggle with so don’t feel bad if you do too.)

You can pick and choose the areas where imperfection is acceptable for you, but it is a fast and easy way to start finding extra time in your day.

Delegate Chores

Chances are that your family isn’t doing as much as they could/should to help you keep up with the household responsibilities. Delegating chores to your family is another way to get your free time back.

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Be sure to let your husband know exactly what he can do to help you out as well. Chances are he simply doesn’t know what you need. When you let him know clearly how he can help you, it will also allow you to find more free time.

Note:

This also ties in with letting go of perfection. Your kids may not vacuum or wash the dishes as well as you would, but in many cases done is better than procrastination.

Give Up Control

This is the hardest one for control freaks like me. If you want your free time back, though, you need to learn to give up some of the control. This takes many forms:

If you overly involved in your child’s extra curricular activities you may need to pull back. Use the time to take care of yourself more.

If you spend hours in the kitchen every night to make dinner, let your husband take over one night a week. Yes, it may mean your kids get mac-n-cheese for dinner that night but I promise you that it will be okay.

Don’t Waste It

Another tip to get your free time back is to be cognizant of time wasters. Have you ever pulled out your phone and hopped on Facebook only to realize you wasted an hour of your time? This is only one of the ways that moms waste their free time. In fact, sometimes it is not even free time that they are wasting. It is time that you meant to be cleaning or playing with the kids.

This is another great reason to do a time inventory. It will help you determine those time wasters. Then, redirect those time wasters to activities that either free up time for you later or ones that recharge you during the day. This is one of the absolute easiest ways to find free time for better things in your life.

Create Systems

The final way to get your free time back as a SAHM is to create systems that save you time in your daily life. When you get daily chores or activities down to a science it will free up a ton of free time for you in the long run. In case you need help, here are a few examples of systems that you can implement in your life:

Meal Planning – I seriously love making freezer slow cooker meals that I can dump in the Crock Pot in the morning and serve effortlessly at dinner.
Cleaning Schedule – Even if this simply means spending 10 minutes every night before bed picking up from the day, it will save you a ton of time in the long run.
Get Ready the Night Before – There is nothing worse than trying to find homework, pack lunches, serve breakfast, and search for socks when you’re groggy in the morning. Make your life a million times easier by taking a few minutes in the evening to get ready for the next day.

Now that you know how to get your free time back as a SAHM, it’s time to mindfully enforce these. Again, the hardest thing for most moms is giving up that control and the quest for perfection. If you need additional ideas, be sure to check out The Hard Truth About Carving Out Me Time. One last straight-forward tip to get free time is to embrace door locks. When you are enforcing some time alone that you fought so hard, protect it by simply flipping that little tab on the door.

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Stop Reacting to Life and Live Proactive

10.10.2018 by Marie // Leave a Comment

Do you feel like at the end of the day you accomplished nothing that you wanted to? Have you ever thought, “Why do these things keep happening to me?” If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, you are living reactively. Today is the day you stop reacting to life and live proactive.

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It sounds oversimplified to say stop reacting to life and live proactive but the concept to improving yourself is truly that simple! Click To Tweet

Admittedly, this is a pet peeve of mine. The people who sit around wondering why bad things keep happening to them. They wonder why the bank account is overdrawn again or blame their boss for their getting fired. The one thing they have in common? It’s never their fault.

Life just happens to them. Their account go overdrawn because the bank didn’t update their account balance correctly at the ATM. They got fired because their boss hated them.

Luckily, I know that’s not you because you’ve already worked on taking personal responsibility. However, there are sneakier ways that moms let reactive living creep into their lives.

Sneaky Reactive Living

We all have bad days when the kids don’t let us have a moment’s peace, but how many days in a row has that prevented you from completing a task you really wanted to get done.

How many times have you “lost track” of time and forgotten dinner until it’s too late to cook so you order out?

If these sound familiar, you are not alone. I’ve been right there with you. The problem is that reactive living robs you have your happiness. You feel like your life is chaotic and you have no control. At some point you have to decide that you’ve had enough and you’re ready to boss your day around like the awesome and powerful mom that you are.

Setting Goals

That first step in proactive living is setting your goals. Admittedly this is my favorite part of life. Why? Because it allows you to really dream big. None of your ultimate goals have to be scaled down or cast aside. The sky is the limit when it comes to goals.

It’s not enough to simply think about them. You need to take out your journal and write them down. What does your dream day look like? Would you love to have a house that’s always clean? Dinner is always on the table by 6 pm and your entire family sits down to eat together. You have a brand new mansion in Malibu with both an indoor and an outdoor pool that you can spend everyday by.

Whatever that goal is, write it down. Be as descriptive as possible and include everything you can think of. Seriously, dream big here.

Break Those Goals Down

Once you know what your big goal is, you have to break it down into smaller goals. If you want a brand new mansion in Malibu but you’re living as a single-income family, you are going to have to find ways to increase your income. This could mean starting your own business, taking a part-time job, or other ways of making more money.

Of course, if your goals are smaller right now, that’s totally fine too. For example, all I want right now if for my house to always be clean. That doesn’t sound glamorous but it does so much for my well-being and eases my stress levels greatly. It’s simply what I want.

Start with Big Chunks

For example, a clean house means that:

I have to get it completely clean first.
Then I have to keep it clean.

How Do You Complete Those Chunks

Once you have your big chunks defined, it’s time to break them down even further. How do I completely clean the house?

I clean each room, one at a time and purge any items I don’t use or need.

Okay, my house is clean. How do I keep it clean?

I create systems and routines that consistently clean and organize my home.

Schedule Your Day

Admittedly, above I over-simplified the goals to give you an example. Some will have many big chunks with even more smaller chunks under them, but you get the picture. After you have those smaller chunks, use them as guideposts to plan your day. Determine everything you need to do each day. This is not limited to the actions that will help you achieve your goals. It also includes daily tasks such as making dinner, reading the kids to sleep, or packing lunches in the morning. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how small it may seem.

Get tips for scheduling your day here.

Write It Down

After you know exactly what you need to accomplish, put it on paper. I love a planner for this but you can also use an hourly to-do list or a dry erase board. Use what works for you. Plan out each day the night before or once a week on a specific day. Then treat that list as non-negotiable. For example, there are some days when tackling another room of my house sounds absolutely horrible, but if it’s on my list, I simply have to buck up and do it. This keeps me accountable and when I try to talk myself out of it, essentially, I’m saying that my goals and dreams aren’t important enough.

Expand to All Areas of Life

Once you begin to master living proactive in your daily life, start to expand it to all areas of your life. Set a budget or financial goal then make a plan to bring it to fruition. Create an awesome fitness goal and break it down into smaller, manageable steps. Any area of your life where you want to live proactive, follow these steps. Stop letting life just happen. Take control of it.

It may sound oversimplified to say stop reacting to life and live proactive but the concept is truly that simple. That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take a lot of hard work to get there. When you commit to truly improving yourself and your life, it’s a one-two-three step. You’ve done the hardest part and made the decision to change. Now it’s time to put it into practice in your daily life and watch a life you love begin to emerge and grow.

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The Hard Truth About Carving Out Me Time

10.07.2018 by Marie // Leave a Comment

Your days are filled. You have countless chores, errands, and care-giving to attend to constantly. You’re a stay-at-home mom. It’s your job. That’s why this is going to rock your world. It’s the hard truth about carving out me time.

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Your days are filled with countless chores, errands, and care-giving to attend to. That’s why you need to hear the hard truth about carving out me time. Click To Tweet

Carving literally means to cut, whether that be to shape, design, or mold. Here’s the hard truth about carving out me time: It means cutting something else from your day.

When your days are already filled to capacity, making time for yourself inevitably means something else has to go. Luckily, you are the designer of your life so you get to choose where to make cuts.

Eye-Opening Experience

I recently had a conversation with my 9 year old son that totally rocked my world. I made the comment that I didn’t stop at the book store while we were out because he wasn’t feeling well. He then turned to me and said, “You could have gone. I would have dealt with it so you could look at books.”

This led us down a path of discussion about how important it is to take care of yourself before trying to take care of others. I tried using the example that if you consistently put others ahead of yourself, the depletion of your own health and wellness could ultimately lead to getting very sick or even death. His response chilled me:

“Yeah, but you would die being a good person and caring about other people.”

Let that sink in. My son thought that dying to take care of others is noble, even something to aspire to. Do you know why? He believes that because it is exactly what I have modeled for him his entire life. When he sees me giving everything I have everyday and not taking time for me, he believes that is the correct way to live.

Simple Analogy for Self Care

After I picked my jaw off of the floor, I explained to him that I hadn’t been a very good role model. I tried explaining the specific ways in which I’m attempting to be better but he still wasn’t quite getting it. 9 years of internal foundations isn’t easy to let go of. That’s when I switched tactics.

We are both incredibly frugal and financially minded. I used this to my advantage with this example:

Say that you have $800 in your bank account and that is all you have. Your mortgage of $800 is due right now. On the way to the bank to pay it, you meet a charitable organization that says they are $800 away from being able to feed all of the homeless children. Would you pay your mortgage and keep a roof over your family or give the money away to the charity?

Admittedly, that’s an incredibly noble cause. All of the homeless children getting a meal, right? However, do you condemn your own family to do it?

This made sense to him and he immediately agreed that he would pay his mortgage, then figure out another way to help the homeless children.

What Are You Modeling

The quickest way to make a mom open up her eyes is to show her the harmful lessons her children are learning. Are you teaching your children the same that I was? Self-sacrificing everything for your family, friends, and community seems like the “right” thing to do. But when you turn that mirror around and see your children valuing the health and happiness of all other above their own, we can see the true detriment of it.

Luckily, your children still have you making sure that their needs are met on a daily basis. But what happens when they fly the nest and no longer have that? They are going to choose friends and partners that consistently take their energy and their time. These friends and partners may not even start out selfishly taking without giving in return, but your children will train them that it’s okay to treat them that way.

Is that the life you want for your kids? It certainly isn’t what I want for mine.

Carving Out Me Time

To reverse this belief, let your kids see you making your health and well-being a priority on a regular basis. It can be as little as getting up 15 minutes earlier to enjoy a cup of coffee in peace. You can also choose to read a book after dinner alone in your room for 20 minutes while they play.

Yes, in the first example you are carving out some of your sleep time and in the second it might mean staying up later to clean up. That’s where “carving out” comes into play. Something has to go to make room for your self care.

Here’s the best part, though. As you continue to do this, it gets easier. You will be more mindful about scheduling your time and your days to accommodate these small rituals. It is only hard in the interim because you are establishing new routines. More importantly, you are teaching your children the importance of taking care of their health and well-being.

Now that you know the hard truth about carving out me time, take solace in the knowledge that it is temporary. Once you get the hang of your small changes, it gets easier and you will also get better at it. Later I will talk about more specific and drastic ways to get your free time back as a SAHM but it all starts with these small steps now.

If you haven’t had the overt conversation with your kids about self-care and how it doesn’t make them selfish, do so. You may be surprised to find how much of your actions they have internalized to their own life blueprint. Then, let them know and, more importantly, see you taking action to improve in this facet of life.

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