I’m a mom of 2 year old twins, a wife, and an entrepreneur.
I clean the house, take care of our love birds, do the laundry, clean the garage, fit in workouts, and run a successful business. I’m a daughter. I’m a friend. And I believe that I’m a great wife … Holy cow, I need as much peace in my life as possible.
I bet your life is just as hectic and you feel the same way, right?
I also work hard to figure out little tricks, tips, and systems to help with the ever changing events of life.
I remember when I felt like I had all the time in the world. When I was working in the corporate world from 9 to 5, not married, didn’t have kids, and was actually living at my parents’ home.
So, there I was: lots of freedom and no excuses. I sought out and soaked up training, workshops, networking events, building relationships, and spending valuable time with my friends and family.
I knew that I always wanted to get married and have a family of my own, but I never knew that I would be an entrepreneur. I’m very fortunate that at the age of 25, I was able to start pursuing my professional dream and just go for it, and yes, mainly because I had money to do it. I was living rent-free, I wasn’t married, and I didn’t have kids, so I didn’t have those responsibilities or doubts to hold me back.
I was an entrepreneur for about 8 years, during which I did become a wife and mother. It was then that I had to start thinking about my husband and family and the decisions we were making in the business because they were part of the picture now. Decision making grew to new levels and so did the importance of time management.
Fast forward to the present with my twin toddlers at home. Again, I assume the roles of wife and mother (without a full-time nanny) and I take care of my house. Compared to the days before, I still feel like I haven’t really slowed down that much. If anything, I gained more control and became more focused and motivated because I needed to succeed for my children and husband.
As a new mom, running a business from home can be extremely overwhelming.
This is certainly the case if your house isn’t in order and you are working from home. You notice the kitchen is dirty, or the laundry isn’t done, or there’s dust somewhere. You feel chaotic.
How do you stay focused?
How do you manage to spend quality time with your children, teach them, read with them, play with them, and give them the appropriate attention that they need…and then attend to your house and your husband?
How do you do all of this and still succeed as an entrepreneur or launch projects and businesses, and maintain peace of mind?
How do you get that peace of mind?
Secret #1–Developing a System and Delegating:
My secrets for gaining and sustaining peace of mind begins with idea of delegating the responsibilities in my life that can be delegated–in other words, handing them over to somebody else who can do them for me. But, what if there are important, time consuming tasks that I simply cannot delegate?? Because I want to raise my kids myself–I want to teach them manners, kindness, and generosity, particularly during their early years–no one can do that for me. So in that regard, delegating to a full time nanny wasn’t an option.
Many find that hiring a cleaning lady can help in so many ways too. However, I just haven’t found one who can clean as well as I do. YES, I guess I’m a little obsessive or controlling….but still, I cannot delegate that job.
So, what was I to do? I had to come up with a system, and my secret to that–to lessen the chaos in my mind and to declutter it–was to build a system to upkeep my house. I figured it out: “I’m going to clean one room a day.” I thought that I could accomplish that task any time of the day. Whenever I could, I’d clean 1 room, top to bottom.
With my plan in place, for the majority of time, my house is kept up, and it doesn’t get extremely dirty in my eyes, so I feel better, and I’m able to work and focus on my children. I can focus on my work a little bit better every day because I know that my daily task is to clean 1 room, and I’m not going to be overwhelmed.
You’ll be amazed at the peace of mind you get when you’re a wife and mom (and a new mom) and you’re running a business; or if you’re a 9-5 career mom, or an entrepreneur: and you have all this STUFF on your plate. The last thing you want to do is clean all weekend long, so try to do a room a day.
Try this Monday Morning:
In the mornings, I clean the bathroom before I get into the shower. Maybe on Monday morning, then, before you get to work and before you hop in your shower, get up a little bit earlier and tackle the bathroom. Bonus, you get to be the first to shower in that clean bathroom and start the week feeling accomplished.
The same strategy goes for laundry. If I have a load, I do it. I don’t let it build up, because then it just weighs me down.
Those little things in life feel fantastic and provide peace of mind: Just small, small improvements–small actions day by day, small tasks day by day.
Note: I do have future goals to find somebody who can clean as well as me and I can trust in my home. However, if you don’t have the luxury of a housekeeper, this is a great starting point.
As entrepreneurs, we have all these projects and more.
We’re creative thinkers, right? We’re inspired, we’re motivated, we’re dreamers, we have passions. We want to do it all, we want to build it all, we want that project, this project, and we want to work with so and so and so and so. If you’re an entrepreneur, you understand what I’m talking about.
We must constantly create new systems and find new ways to keep our sanity, to maintain peace of mind, to feel on track and in control, successful, and accomplished. We need to continue to be inspired, motivated and to not give up.
From the beginning, at week 8, my twins slept a lot, from 7pm-7am! They were super sleepers, so I was still able to get a lot of work done. Now, they’re 2 and running all over the place, so I have to rearrange my schedule during the day to work before they wake up, to work during their nap time, or during their quiet time ( in their rooms, separate from me) and then when they go to bed.
Now, here’s the part where outsourcing and delegating saved me…
I had to get back to outsourcing and delegating my business tasks. Before I was married, I had teams and virtual assistants. Then, when we found out that we were having twins, I freaked about revenue and took a lot of it back on and did the work myself. Such a bad idea because you can’t grow and I didn’t. You cannot expand when you’re doing it all. I know this first-hand.
You really shouldn’t be doing it all. Back to delegating…
Doing it all will drive us into the ground. We’ll get drained and exhausted. We’re not meant to do everything. We’re meant to do the things that fuel us and that inspire us, and we’re meant to delegate the tasks that can be delegated and can be given to somebody else that has the passion and desire to do that part. So, that’s what I started to do.
I instantly felt peace of mind.
For example, my weekly newsletter: somebody can easily manage that, and I have a system for sending them content, which they edit. Social media: you can outsource your social media. You can outsource the things that you need to have researched. I hate doing research.
You can also hire somebody to take your voice recordings and transcribe them, and then create an article out of that. So, you see, there are a lot of little pieces in your life as an entrepreneur that you can outsource and delegate.
Secret #2-How to Get Shit Done With Your Top 6:
Now, here is the other strategy that I have that has also really given me peace of mind every week and every day: At the beginning of the week, I do this thing called “brain dumping.”
This used to be an everyday brain dumping because I was able to get so much done every day before I had children. These days, though, I brain dump weekly.
I brain dump all the things that I need to do from business to personal to whatever. I look at my personal to-dos, and the top 3 priorities, and then I look at my business to-dos, and those top 3 priorities for that week.
Those 6 things are what I commit myself to do every Monday morning before lunchtime. That’s the goal: to get these done before lunchtime.
I promise you, that if you do this too, you will feel so frickin’ awesome. You will be flying on cloud 9. You’ll be super stoked that you’ve accomplished these 6 things for your personal life and professional life, all on a Monday morning and probably before lunchtime.
Then, you go back to your list and look and the rest of the week to conquer that. Anything extra is a bonus.
Those are my 2 secret tips.
One is for your personal life–as a mom or a new mom–and one’s for business–as a career woman, as a boss lady, or as an entrepreneur.
You’ll figure out your own systems and a routine that suits you, but I highly, highly, highly recommend these 2 approaches–these 2 secrets–that will give you instant peace of mind.
If you have any secrets or tips of your own I’d love to hear them. Post them below in the comments, tweet them to me, or share them on Facebook. We’ll share them with the community.
The more tips, tricks, and strategies we share, we never know who we’re going to be able to help; who we’re going to be able to give a peace of mind; and who we’re going to help succeed and feel accomplished, validated,, supported, and just feel frickin’ amazing.
We all deserve to feel that. We all deserve to have daily peace. We all deserve to feel calm. We all deserve to feel accomplished. Let’s do this.
Hear from more Moms and Entrepreneurs: Sharing how they get their peace of mind
Every morning I read for 20 minutes. It could be fiction, a biz book, an old journal. This uninterrupted early morning me-time feeds my mind, my soul, my creativity and my imagination. I always feel grounded and ready to take on the day afterwards. – Mallika Malhortra
We keep a clothes sorter in each bathroom and the kids bedroom. I collect all whites one day, collect all darks one day and towels another day. Saves me from spending time sorting everything and less hours a day doing laundry. I’m able to spend more time with the kids and they don’t even realize “sorting” is a positive learning experience! Plus then my husband can help without messing up the white and brights! – Natalie Callow
I let go of my guilt of having a cleaning person. Every other week, my entire house is clean and I feel calm. It also forces me to stay on top of “piles” that form. My kids need to do laundry, put away their things and on the off weeks, we all clean toilets, etc…. But those 2 days a month are my gift to myself. – Marie D’Auria McNamara
I’ve accepted that what keeps me sane is a work in progress as we grow as a family. 5 years ago it was nap time, now it’s having my older kids doing chores all on their own. This will continue to change until the day I leave this Earth, and thats okay. – Cearson Barnett
Accept that peace of mind may only appear for brief moments and be sandwiched between other stress filled situations. Be open and curious about anything that shows up because each moment is an opportunity to grow. – Jennifer Bronswick
I put absolutely everything in my calendar. Things like paying bills, doing blog postings, good grocery sales, phone calls, deep cleaning, home projects, visiting friends and errands are given dates and times just like appointments and events. When I have everything on my calendar I don’t feel like I’m trying to squeeze necessary things into an already too full day. It helps me to keep up on my day to day tasks and I always have self care time scheduled for myself as well! – Angie Toone
I make sure to schedule an actual sit down lunch time for myself every day, usually accompanied by my reading a novel. This creates a necessary break for me that I look forward to every day, as well as keeping me sane, not feeling like I’m always doing everything for everyone else and ignoring myself. – Evelyn Cucchiara
I put a 15 minute timer on once during work hours to tidy up. This helps me not be tempted to clean my house during the time I should be working. I give my older daughter and husband the same timer this way , we all share the responsibility of tidying up. Truth is many times I do this timer twice a day. Not gonna lie because I too feel more in control when the house is in order at least somewhat. – Neepa Sikdar
Set weekly goals every Monday. Mostly related to health and wellness, but sometimes it can be on an unrelated topic. For example, drinking water daily, weight lifting twice a week, packing lunch at least 3 times, or even sharing five positive things daily. I share with a group so I’m accountable, and then report on it weekly or daily if I need support. This process had enabled me to make small lifestyle changes over time. – Carol Gonzalez
A place for everything and everything in its place. Sounds simple but assigning homes and then taking the time (usually a matter of seconds) to put things away makes it super easy to keep the house/office/garage/attic/basement neat and tidy and saves loads of time allowing you to focus on the important things in life/work. We never have time to put things away (“I’ll drop my keys here, just for now”) but we always have time to look for them (Now where are those darn keys? I’m going to be so late to my [fill in the blank])…Encourage your kids and family to be organized by giving them the skills and tools so you don’t have to do it all. Physical clutter leads to mental clutter. Teach your children to let go of things…Clean as you go, use little minutes to get stuff done, leave a space better than you found it. These habits give me peace of mind. – Andrea Walker
“Each morning I wake my kids with a kiss and tell them I love them. Each day brings its own surprises, joys and frustrations, but if I know their day started with a kiss + love I’m willing to forgive myself for the motherhood imperfections that follow.” – Patty Lennon
“Focus at the start of my work day with priority list and intention. Keep work space for only work as much as I can. I check in with my kick ass plan at the start of work day and review it and update at the end “- Cara Fiorillo Maksimow
Identity Magazine is all about empowering women to get all A’s in the game of life — Accept. Appreciate. Achieve.TM Every contributor and expert answer the Identity 5 questions in keeping with our theme. Their answers can be random and in the moment or they can be aligned with the above article. As a team, we hope to inspire and motivate ourselves and inspire you to get all A’s.
1. What have you accepted within your life, physically and/or mentally? What are you still working on accepting?
I have embraced and accepted that life is constantly changing and being adaptable and easy going will take me far!
2. What have you learn to appreciate about yourself and/or within your life, physically and mentally? What are you still working on to appreciate?
I appreciate my systems and family/friends support
3. What is one of your most rewarding achievements in life? What makes YOU most proud? What goals and dreams do you still have?
Surviving AND thriving these first 2 years as a new mom.
4. We all have imperfections, so we think. The truth–we are all perfectly imperfect. What are your not-so-perfect ways? What imperfections and quirks create who you are–your Identity?
I move too quick and sometimes need to slow down.
5. “I Love My…” is an outlet for you to express and appreciate all the positive traits that make you…well… YOU! Sharing what you love about yourself will make you smile, feel empowered, and uplift your spirit and soul. (we assure you!) Identity challenges you to complete the phrase “I Love My…?”
I love how I can get shit done and I love the sometimes chaos in my life!
