This is what I told my client when she couldn’t unplug from her to-do list.

J. said, “I find myself taking on every task I see in front of myself rather than stopping to ask if I should be doing it. Then I never get to relax!”

And that’s a problem.

Because you as the business owner need to have dedicated recharge time each day - plus “after the kids” recharge time - and handling everything yourself isn’t going to cut it.

(In fact, as you’ve just found out, you’re actively kicking the “time off” can down the road each and every time you say “I’ll just handle this real quick.”)

So let’s reframe this…. 

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Love your daily life as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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• How to set no-housework boundaries (yes, even on the weekend!) so you can fully recharge between work weeks
• The secret behind to-do list re-prioritizing + how it saves you from hustle mode when you get off track
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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about what I told my client when she couldn’t unplug from her to-do list.

You know when you’re a productivity machine, except you don’t even LIKE being that efficient anymore, ‘cause you keep getting stuff done but you never get that break for yourself?

Here’s what one of my super high achieving clients said to me the other day, when she wanted help to fix this exact problem: I find myself taking on every task I see in front of myself rather than stopping to ask if I should be doing it. Then I never get to relax!

So true. And that’s a problem.

Because YOU as the business owner need to have dedicated recharge time EACH day - plus “after the kids” recharge time - and handling everything yourself ISN’T going to fix it.

(In fact, as you’ve just found out, you’re actively kicking the “time off” can down the road each and every time you say “oh, I’ll just handle it real quick.”)

So let’s reframe this to “I can’t be a great mom and serve my clients really well and fill my own cup AND cross off my personal to-do list” if I keep doing everything in sight. 

Period, end of story. 

You can’t. 

You’re finite. 

You don’t have enough energy. 

But your TEAM does…. ‘Cause that’s what you’re PAYING them for.

So why don’t you make a game out of seeing how much you can delegate? 

Let’s call it the “outsourcing efficiency” game….

• Five dozen things popped up on the business side of your to-do list? Go through all of them and ask if they HAVE to be done by you, or if team can handle them. 
• New task on your plate from the kids’ school? Ask if it has to be you, or if your husband can do it (or your mom takes them or your kids fill out most of the paperwork by themselves and just bring it to you to sign).
• Asana mysteriously populating with tasks that all seem to be assigned to YOU? Maybe your VA is just assigning things to you automatically by default, whereas YOU need to set up some new workflows around who always gets what and empowered decision making.

And make it fun. Start tiering your task list from the mindset of….

• How much of this can I disappear from my personal to-do list because it doesn’t even belong here in the first place?
• What doesn’t need to be done by me (or by the end of this week period) that I can delete off Friday’s to-do list, and take the kids to the park instead?
• How fast can I get to my afternoon coffee break ‘cause I’ve delegated and reassigned these 8 new things?

Get in the mode of the efficiency expert whose zone of expertise is in seeing how much she can NOT do, ‘cause team has been trained to do it (or preteens, if it’s family stuff!), not in the mode of “I’M so efficient so I have to do it all myself.”

You see? It’s just a mindset switch you have to flip. And then it’s done, and you have a whole new filter for seeing your to-do list from here on out.

(And yes, sometimes you DO have a giant to-do list stackup and it’s all your OWN tasks that can’t be delegated - but here’s how you handle THAT.)

This summer I chose to do a 5-hour power hour over 2 days, because my “must be done by me” to-do list felt overwhelming - and guess what happened? 

I got a 2nd wind, cleared my list *completely* - like I had an entire hour to spare for myself - and was SO relieved by the end of it. 

Nitty gritty details: it was Friday afternoon; I chose to skip my normal recharge time to get through my emotional overload feeling and process my to-do list instead; after our pizza night supper, just crossed off one thing after another from my business to-do list; and then I got up early Sat. morning while my husband went for a bike ride and handled the big, bad “family vacation packing list” refresh now that my kids are all out of diapers. (Whew!)

And it was all done, because *I* chose to. Not because I’d “should-ed” myself into doing it.

And then my entire weekend, Saturday lunch on, was free for me to enjoy, because I’d cleared out my to-do list. (I’m a batch worker, so that’s why it worked for me; you do you.)

But generally, MOST things on your to-do list aren’t going to have to be handled by YOU specifically, and you just need to get really good about handing them off to team (or husband or preteens). 

(And then letting yourself take that break - no sneaking off to do more work out a misplaced sense of worth!)

So what’s changing about your “this to-do list never ends” feeling today? Are you going to go put “outsource the heck out of this” on this afternoon’s to-do list?

DON’T feel guilty, DO take on team, and DON’T let yourself wiggle out of it. (Aka, take back the work.)

Your coach says you have to knock it off. Because the only way you’re ever going to do less housework and have fewer work hours is by delegating the heck out of it. Aka, outsourcing (whether it’s to your amazing comes-every-other-week housekeeper, or your horde of 10-year-olds, or a new contract role on your team). 

You’ve GOT to start getting things OFF your plate.

How much are you deleting today?