Work-Life Balance | Working Mom Schedule + Routine Tips

[Music] what video would you like to see one of the top requests is always tell us more about how you balance your schedule as a mom who also runs a business how do you do it all that's what people say to me in real life too how do you run a business and homeschool your kids and also cook meals and exercise and and and and well the short answer and this is the really short answer you can stop watching after the video if this answers the question for you but the short answer is that phrase you can have anything but you can't have everything which could also be said you can do anything but you can't do everything really what the answer to this question comes down to more than anything else is just making those decisions about what your real priorities are and then making the judgment calls about how to actually prioritize the things that are in fact important to you and say no to basically everything else i know a lot of you would like a little bit more kind of practical detail or examples about how i actually do this in my life though so that's what i want to share with you next i want to paint the picture of what my days look like what my weeks look like to help you understand how i do this and what i do so i've made some notes here on my phone to help me remember first of all what exactly do i do each week first of all i run my business and i run my youtube channel i also homeschool my kids i cook i try to cook healthy meals every day i also tidy my house and i do some exercise and i try to take care of myself now for me this doesn't so much mean like pamper myself but i want to make sure that i am physically taking care of myself so that i can have enough energy and be in a reasonably good mood so that i can take care of those around me and so that i am able to work on the projects that i want to do and really what it comes down to is that i can love others well those are the things that i do we'll get more into that in a minute but i also wanted to tell you a couple things that i don't do uh one thing i don't do is i don't clean so that might sound a little bit weird but i pay for cleaning service for my home let me explain that a little bit i definitely used to for a very long time clean my own house i did that when i had a smaller house that took less time to clean and i was making less money at a certain point as we've moved and moved and moved again the houses that we were living in were big enough that they took a lot more time to clean and so around that time obviously that was also related to earning more money so living in a bigger house i realized that one way i could essentially buy more time which is something you can't do that much would be to pay someone to clean my house for me so that i didn't have to spend the time on that and i could have a little bit more room my schedule so i decided that that would be a priority in my budget to be able to afford to do that and i think that that was a great decision obviously it's not an option for everyone but if it's something that could potentially fit into your budget perhaps if you sacrifice something else i would urge you to consider it because like i said there are very few ways you can actually buy time but that is one of them another thing i don't do as i alluded to earlier is pamper myself thing is like getting my nails done getting my hair done getting a massage all that sort of stuff it's fun i kind of like it but i kind of really like it but i realized that those things all take time which means i have less time in my schedule which can actually cause me to be more stressed and even though they're fun and i enjoy them they don't really add more joy to my life they don't really increase my satisfaction with life so basically they don't really feed my soul so i decided to prioritize the time and the money for things like eating healthy food and just having some quiet time and time to read my bible and time to exercise because i think that those are the things that really give me the most energy and the most joy and the most satisfaction with my life which again those are the things that enable me to love others better so i mostly avoid the pampering type things i do occasionally go get my hair done or every once in a while get my nails done or get a massage but it's not a regular thing that's taking time in my schedule and then one more thing i don't do is just watching tv or movies very much i'll occasionally watch a movie i'll certainly watch a few youtube videos every week but it's not taking up much time in my schedule now i mentioned each of these things that i don't do not at all that make you feel bad if you choose to do them but i just want you to have a realistic picture of what i am fitting in and what i'm not because if you saw the list of the things i am fitting in and then you just assumed that that was in addition to watching a couple hours of tv every night and getting my hair done every other week or something like that then the the mystery of my life and how i fit everything in would be quite a mystery so i just want you to understand what i'm doing what i'm not and some ways in which i'm saving some time so next i want to share with you two important principles that help me to balance my life and my work and get everything done that i want to get done and then i want to walk you through my typical daily schedule the first principle i mentioned earlier on it's know your priorities you can do anything but you can't do everything so here's the thing if you try to fit everything into your schedule that society says you should or even just everything that seems normal to do then you're not going to have the time to do the things that are really important to you and you'll feel like you don't have enough time and that's why it is so important to know your true priorities so that you can give them time and space in your schedule give them the energy and attention that you want to and then let other things fill in the cracks because if you just do what everyone else says is normal what you see everyone else doing then you're not gonna have time for those things the second principle is to keep each activity as simple as possible this is important and helps so much because things that are simple tend to take less time and energy and so if you can keep each activity as simple as possible so that you still get the benefits or the results from it that you want but it's taking up less time and energy then you'll be able to fit more things in your schedule and or have more white space more relaxation less stress in your schedule so let me give you a few examples of what this looks like in my life first of all with work obviously a lot of people work 40 plus hours a week but i strive to work just about 20 hours a week because that gets me the results i want but in a way that doesn't take up too much of my time and energy now i know that that's not possible for everyone but let me kind of share with you the backstory of this back when i earned way less money than i earned today when i was earning just about thirty thousand dollars a year or less i made a decision to value my time at a certain dollar amount and not do any work that paid less than that now the dollar amount that i originally identified was thirty dollars an hour which might seem a little high considering how little per year i was earning but i realized that if i put a little bit more time and effort into finding the work i could find some work that paid me that much and then i could work fewer hours per week and earn about the same amount as if i was working say minimum wage full-time now that might not sound very smart because i was spending more time finding the work and so overall i was working a little bit more time but the reason this worked out and why i would recommend to other people to do this is that yes it took more time and effort to find that work but i didn't have to keep putting in that time and effort because once i found a job or a gig or a client who would pay me that much i could typically keep working that system keep serving that client keep doing that gig keep working that job and i didn't have to keep putting in more time and effort to be able to earn that hourly rate obviously over time i've been able to increase that rate that i see my time as worth and that's because i've continued to prioritize finding work that pays higher and improving my skills so that i am worth more per hour rather than prioritizing earning possibly a little bit more money now by just taking the work that is easier to find now for another example of how i have tried to simplify tasks so that i can get bigger results with less effort would be with homeschool now when kids go to school a lot of the time they're there from eight or nine in the morning until two or three in the afternoon so they might be there for five to seven hours and that is a lot of time to spend on school but some people when they homeschool they think they need to spend that much time however i found that one of the nicest things about homeschooling is that because you have such a amazing to student ratio you can get a lot more done in a lot less time so for example in our family where i have three kids that i'm doing school with a preschooler a first grader and a third grader we are able to get all of the school work done in about two hours per day so the reason why that is possible aside from the great teacher to student ratio so we're not wasting as much time is because i keep things really simple we don't do all the different subjects we could i prioritize skills over just learning knowledge so for example we focus on reading writing math and then problem solving and self-management now this last two things are not actual subjects that we sit down and do workbook work with but they're just things that i have the kids practice and i try to teach the kids over time the reason why i prioritize those skills over knowledge is first of all because those skills are things that they can build on over time and they will serve them for the rest of their life but it also means that much sooner than later they're going to be able to play a big role in the management of their schooling that's what i did when i was homeschooled myself by fifth grade i was managing all of my schooling i was choosing most of my curriculum i was reading the teacher guides and the student text and i was able to just learn on my own and my parents got to be very uninvolved of course they were involved to some degree and it's important to have accountability and some leadership but they didn't have to spend much time at all managing or teaching me so that's my goal for my kids because obviously right now i am doing all the teaching and we're able to get school done in about two hours a day because we keep it simple and again we're not wasting time because we have such a good student-to-teacher ratio but in just a couple of years their school will take a lot more time because they'll have to get into more of those knowledge subjects rather than just the skill based subjects so there will be a lot more reading to do and math problems will take longer to solve and things like that so my goal for them is that by the time they get to that point they will be able to largely self-direct so i will still be able to spend relatively minimal time just overseeing and providing that accountability and helping them rather than managing everything [Music] so finally i wanted to wrap this up by just kind of walking you through what a typical day in my life looks like but i have to start by saying every day in my life is different i love routines and there are some routines that i'm able to stick with but i've just come to a point in my life where i have accepted the fact that i live my life in a really flexible and organic way and i just kind of go with the flow and i'm not very good at sticking to most routine so every day looks different most days i wake up at 7 00 am but sometimes if i stayed up too late the night before i might sleep until eight if i went to bed earlier i might wake up at six anyway it changes every day based on what different activities we have on the schedule and how we're feeling and what i need to get done with work and all those sorts of things so this is just a typical day it's not every day so on a typical day i wake up at about seven and then i might make breakfast for myself and the kids then by about 8 30 i might go and work and typically i either spend all morning working or all afternoon working so if i do go work in the morning i'll work from about 8 30 or 9 until around 12 30 or 1 and then i quit working and i come back to the house and i have lunch with the kids if i worked in the morning then what we spend the first part of the afternoon doing is school we'll spend about two hours maybe from 1 30 to about 3 30 or a little less doing school i'll help them with most of their subjects and then they also are able to do a little bit of the work on their own once we're done with school the second half of the afternoon is completely just flex time maybe i do some chores maybe we go grocery shopping maybe i just sit on the couch and read a book maybe i play some games with the kids there are all sorts of options it just kind of depends on what needs to get done by about 5 30 or 6 preferably on the sooner side but realistically more often on the later side i start working on dinner i try to cook a healthy dinner for my family every evening if possible although sometimes activities get in the way of that and then we'll eat at about 6 30 or 7. after dinner we go through the kids bedtime routine typically either my husband or i will be putting them to bed which involves tooth pajamas and reading a story and the other one of us will do the dishes for the day once the kids are in bed and the dishes are done there's normally about an hour before i'd like to be in bed so most of the time i try to use the first part of this time to exercise for the longest time up until the last year or so i avoided exercising in the evening because i heard that exercise wakes you up and so you want to exercise early in the day to help wake you up and you want to avoid exercising in the evening because it can keep you from sleeping but uh after trying that for a long time and really just not working for me i decided to try it the other way and it worked so much better for me exercising tends to make me more tired and kind of wear me out so when i would exercise earlier in the day i would be out of energy but if i exercise in the evening then it really helps to use up some of the last part of the energy and allow me to sleep better and it also just fits into my schedule so much better i don't spend a whole lot of time exercising though i try to keep my routine very minimalist because exercise i believe is important but it's not a huge priority of mine so i typically just try to focus on some intense kind of high impact moves for about 15 minutes and then i will relax on the couch and read a book or journal or maybe watch some youtube videos until about 9 00 or 9 30 at which point i get ready for bed and i try to have the lights out by about 10 pm as i mentioned sometimes i work in the morning but sometimes i work in the afternoon so the two big activities that we need to do pretty much every weekday is school and work but those two activities kind of flip-flop sometimes we do work in the morning and school in the afternoon and sometimes vice versa and that kind of depends on what activities the kids have going on at what time of day there are also of course those evening activities for us those include things like gymnastics swim game nights bible studies different things like that there are obviously so many fun activities that we and the kids could do however there are other things that we do if we're at home if we're at home then we're going to enjoy a nice family dinner together we typically read a chapter of the bible after dinner we get to have a nice relaxed bedtime with the kids and you know things like my exercise and just some relaxation and those things are important too in fact i think that those things are probably more important than the activities although the kids of course love the activities and a lot of the time the activities are where we get in some social time and that's important too all this to say there needs to be some balance so i try to limit our evening activities to know more than about three times per week so we get slightly more of the the normal boring relaxing routine and slightly less of the busyness that comes with those activities but it's certainly a balancing act as i mentioned at the beginning of this video a lot of this just comes down to knowing your priorities knowing what the non-negotiables are that you want to absolutely fit into your schedule so a few of my non-negotiables are work you know i gotta somehow make some money to support my family school because my kids are only getting older and older and i don't want them to um get behind i want to make sure that they are continuing to learn and grow taking time to listen to my kids that's obviously not something that gets scheduled onto my calendar but making sure that there's enough white space enough time when i can just play with them enough time when i can read to them enough time for bedtime so that i can listen to them and we're not constantly rushing from one activity to another is really important another one would be bible both time for me to read my bible myself time to read to the kids time to do our evening bible reading as a family that's a high priority of mine and then the last one is just white space on my schedule sometimes i calendar block and i book everything to the minute when i do that though i try to really overestimate each of the different blocks of time so that i'm not feeling rushed from one thing to the next but however you do it i would just at least for me i find it really important that there's breathing room so that i don't end up feeling stressed i'm curious to know what some of your non-negotiables and top priorities are and i also think it would be a really good thing for you to think about for at least a couple minutes right now leave me a comment down below the video this is your homework assignment to keep you accountable to make sure that you actually get something out of this video not just be entertained think about what your top priorities are what those non-negotiable things are that you want to do every day they're the most important things to you and tell me in the comments down below if you have any ideas thoughts or input about other videos on this similar topic of work life balance how to run a business as a mom how to balance it all how to schedule that sort of thing let me know what videos you would like to see because it seems like you guys are really interested in that topic but sometimes i struggle with coming up with very specific video ideas rather than just this general kind of catch-all how i do it all but don't really type video so let me know your video ideas down below as well that'd be super helpful what's coming up here on my channel next week is a video all about how to go from zero to a hundred thousand dollars of income in 2022 if right now you're thinking about starting your own business and you're wondering how do i get from zero to earning six figures with that or maybe right now you're just working a job but you would love to greatly increase your income then be sure to tune in next week for that video i'm going to be going through the whole process kind of the different phases you need to go through to reach that milestone make sure you're subscribed and you've got notifications on so you don't miss that video thank you so much for watching all the way to the end of the video i love you i hope you're having an amazing week and i'll see you next time

Channel: Gillian Perkins

Views: 2,982

Keywords: work at home mom schedule, productivity tips, work at home mom productivity, work-life balance, work life balance, gillian perkins, working mom schedule, working mom routine, work at home mom routine, #14, #productivity, #wahm, work at home mom

Id: sWa1YjpAFq0

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 14 2021