You’re going to have to redo your daily schedule THIS often as a busy work-at-home mom - and no one warned you about it.

The best work/life balance rhythms aren't static; the best work-from-home family routines aren't set in stone.

Babies grow, which means their sleep and food needs change to match. (You have lots of experience with this already!)

Well, your business grows, too. 

• Your client load increases
• You're in a launch, and you need someone else to make lunch for the family each day of open cart
• And then there’s your annual going-on-vacation prep routine….

Look: you're a mom, and your kids (and business!) are growing, and that's normal. 

Here’s how to handle it.

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

De-stress daily life as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about how often you’re going to have to redo your daily schedule as a busy work-at-home mom - because no one warned you about it!

The best work/life balance rhythms aren't static; the best work-from-home family routines aren't set in stone.

Babies grow, which means their sleep and food needs change to match. (You have lots of experience with this already!)

Well, your business grows, too. 

• Your client load increases, and now you need to hand off some of the food prep while you're training a VA so you can get things back to normal (a *new* normal).
• You're in a launch, and you need your husband to dump in the 5-minute Instapot meals for supper each night and bring you your pre-prepped sandwich at your desk. (We all know that one!)
• And what about your going-on-vacation annual-prep routine? There's so much batching to do; everything has to get uploaded and the dates double checked - twice; and you're sending messages to all projects right and left as you notify everyone of your "out of office" and "back to work" calendar dates. (So you can check out, guilt-free, and make memories with your kids!)

Logically, you’d expect to rejigger your work-from-home workload every 6 months. (Plus your chore load and the housekeeping work that's included.)

Because you're a mom, and your kids (and business!) are growing, and that's normal. 

• So is there a cleaning routine you need to adjust and adapt to better fit your needs today?
• A laundry rhythm that isn't quite making it anymore?
• A food prepping chore that you can hand off to your kids? (Trust me, 8-year-olds are quite capable!)

Just do the best routine you can *now* with the kids you have now, and know that their ability level changes (and it *will* be for the better). Same for your ability to lead (or even hire) team and hand off a successful delegation.

Totally mom life example of this for you: the weekly smoothie prep.

You see, we started drinking daily smoothies several years ago to get more fruit and yogurt into our diet. (Probiotics! Great!)

Except.... With a family of 7, we take a *lot* of fridge space on smoothies. And I didn't like using the blender every day. 

So I thought it'd be easier to food prep the smoothies. Just do some 1 day, and some another day, and another batch at the end of the week for everyone to drink right then (on the weekend).

I kept adjusting my smoothie prep day because I didn't want to do it. Yet I had to, if I wanted to enjoy that delicious cold spoonful *without* the "get the blender out" hurdle every lunchtime. (I drink mine at lunch.)

So for a few years, I struggled through - each iteration getting closer and closer to optimal energy time for me to make 3 whole batches of smoothies (at Max fill line!) at once.

And then all of a sudden, everything changed.

The catalyst: 2 elementary school boys - who decided that kitchen machines were fun. Now *they* wanted to fill the blender and press the buttons and stir down the frozen chunks of fruit.

I couldn't believe my luck - *they* wanted to do my disliked weekend chore? When I was tired out after church and *still* had lunch to cook plus 3 smoothies to prep? What a fix!

And sure enough, week after week, my boys happily climbed up on a stool, grabbed all the ingredients, set them out on the counter (in the order they'd seen me do it), and dropped banana dive bombs and dumped yogurt and shook flax seed and pounded stirrers. It was great.

(So great, in fact, that both of them fought over it - who gets to do it *this* time? mom life issues, for the win!)

And that's what we're still doing. Both boys, taking turns week by week, prepping all 3 smoothies while *I* cook the Sunday lunch. My energy is so much better. And all it took was time.

• Time while I was prepping and they were watching.
• Time for one boy to get to age 6.
• Time for another boy to get to age 9.
• Time for them to voice their "run a noisy machine" desires to me.

Time. And then I was free. 

And now everyone compliments *them* on the weekly smoothies. 

So this is why I’m *constantly* preaching *less* housework for *you*, ‘cause it’s a cornerstone of my work/life balance program. When *you* no longer think you *have* to be responsible for *all* the chores that go on around the house - and you’re actively *looking* for ways to shift more and more off your plate - something crazy happens to your CEO brain space, let me tell you. 

And I think you deserve to have those white space lightbulb moments happen for *you*.

So see what needs shifting on the housework side of your mom life - it's going to have far-reaching business effects. 

Because when you get comfortable with delegating on BOTH sides of your life, your business reaps the benefits. 

(Like thinking up a whole new offer during your CEO white space time, due to NOT having to fold all the laundry!)

Which long standing routine needs a little (or a lot of) tweaking today?