Productively Present Parenting for Mompreneurs

On this show, we talk about designing a daily routine that can make you feel like a SuperMom who CAN do it all! Maybe you already have a routine that you enjoy, or maybe you have a routine that currently is not working well for you or your family. Perhaps your “routine” consists mostly of reacting to your day instead of being in control of your day. In this podcast, we are going to highlight ways for you examine how you can stop reacting and start feeling in complete control of your day.

On this show, we talk about designing a daily routine that can make you feel like a SuperMom who CAN do it all! Maybe you already have a routine that you enjoy, or maybe you have a routine that currently is not working well for you or your family. Perhaps your “routine” consists mostly of reacting to your day instead of being in control of your day. In this podcast, we are going to highlight ways for you examine how you can stop reacting and start feeling in complete control of your day.

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Our 2-Minute Tear Apart is available exclusively to our subscribers so be sure to pick your favorite podcast player and subscribe! In this VIP segment, we closely examine something we have come across in our lives to determine if it fits our goal of living a healthy life. At the end of the 2 Minutes, you should know the ins and outs of the practice or product we tear apart. This week we tore apart the MuTu system for pelvic floor health. Make sure you tune into the podcast to hear that segment and find out what we discovered!

Designing the perfect daily routine

Your first step in designing the perfect daily routine is to closely examine what you are doing now and discover where your time is well-used and where it is wasted. Routine doesn’t necessarily mean a rigidly scheduled series of events. It means something a little more loose like--a rhythm. You might already have a bit of a rhythm where one action follows another naturally. This is the best kind of routine when children and families are involved. Many studies show children (and most adults) thrive in orderly environments that have a predictable routine. This doesn’t have to mean following a schedule around the clock. If you don’t currently have any sort of routine or rhythm but you have a growing to-do list, I think it is safe to say that you need to get some sort of action plan in place!!

The “Must”, “Should”, and “Could” Dos

Step 1: write down your must, should, and could dos under each day of the week. This step might take you awhile as you will continue to add new tasks as they come up. Some ideas to include are laundry, showering, dishes, workout time, work tasks, meals, chores, commuting, and family time.

Step 2: use a timer and follow your task list to see the amount of time it takes to complete each task. At the end of this exercise, you might have to make the difficult decision to let go of tasks that just simply do not fit in your life right now. As hard as it is to say “no”, it will reduce stress in your life and ultimately improve your health, both mentally and physically.

Step 3: look back at your list and ask yourself if you are being realistic. As moms, we have long to-do lists, and often overestimate what we can actually get done.

These unrealistic expectations can lead to feelings of defeat. Is your plan making you exhausted before you even start your week? Does it just look impossible to get accomplished? It may be time to say “no” especially if you feel like your health is suffering from being overtaxed. Does saying “no” bring anxiety. It does for us!

But the alternative is not pretty either. Saying “no” can involve something as difficult as telling a friend or family member that you cannot do a task or meet an expectation.

Or, it can be as simple as purging your own tasks off of your list of expectations that you set for your week. Look at your time diary, are you noticing that your day is broken up by so many little things?

As moms with little kids, we know that running a simple errand can completely derail your day and mean that nothing on your to-do list gets done! It is important to make sure that you are not fragmenting your day with little tasks and especially little-unplanned tasks. Saying “no” can also be to yourself. Do you need to say no to all the time you are spending dealing with emails?

How about a “no” to time on the phone, social media, or running meetings, groups, etc. Maybe you don’t need to eliminate it completely out of your life, but maybe you need to scale back your responsibilities.

After week one of your timer exercises and most definitely by the end of week two, you will have a few thorns that stick out at you. One might be a habit or responsibility that you have taken on that is derailing your productivity. That habit could be something like ch...

Do you really feel better about managing the home with your sink full of dishes, pile of dirty laundry, and dust bunny breeding ground if someone tells you, “the dishes can wait, the laundry can wait, the dusting can wait?” What about “messy house, happy kids”? If yes, then keep doing what you are doing because it works for you and that’s great! However, if platitudes like that just make you want to argue and justify all of the reasons why the dishes really can’t wait...then you need to tune in to this episode.

Get the free Power Plan for this episode by clicking here. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss our 2-Minute Tear Apart session that you can only hear on the podcast. In this tear apart, we closely examine something we have come across in our lives to determine if it fits our goal of living a healthy life.

At the end of the 2 minutes, you should know the ins and outs of the practice or product we Tear Apart. This week we tore apart mommy guilt and how to take one simple step toward erasing it for good. So make sure you tune into the podcast to hear that segment.

What you will learn about managing the home and why the dishes really can't wait

Do SuperMoms FEEL super all of the time? Nope, most definitely not! It is something that we have to work toward because self-doubt creeps in and we start the self-defeating talk. And having even the most well-meaning person tell you that “the dishes can wait” or “dirty house, happy kids” can just pile on the self-loathing because there is nothing like adding a little bit of guilt to the already difficult task of managing your home and keeping it clean and orderly. We are going to break down the reasons why you should not feel guilty about wanting a clean house so you can immediately drop the self-doubt and recognize exactly what a dirty house can do to your morale.

Step One:

Print the Power Plan and write down what makes you a SuperMom and also why you want a tidy home (brainstorm and write directly inside the Power Plan).

Also in the podcast and Power Plan, we will share strategies for helping you move toward a more low maintenance home. Join the conversation on managing the home and get personalized help in our private community of SuperMoms.

Get the shownotes here.

I never felt like I was failing at motherhood until my third pregnancy was followed by a debilitating chronic illness the same year my husband spent his career traveling, leaving me to solo-parent all three of our kids.

ALL I DID WAS LIE IN BED AND WATCH THE ROOM SPIN DREADING THE MOMENT ONE OF THE SMALL VOICES WOULD CALL OUT TO ME-- BECAUSE I COULDN’T COME, EVEN IF I TRIED. MY HOUSE FELL TO PIECES. BELIEVING IT WOULD END “ANY DAY NOW”, WE MADE THE BEST OF IT.

And really that just meant that I accepted my struggle as my reality...something I could not change.
After 5 months I finally saw a fork in the road:
Continue barely surviving and enduring tremendous guilt over all the moments I was missing.
Or
Do something!
EVERYTHING CHANGED THE DAY I CHOSE TO DO SOMETHING...
I was declared “recovered” because I could stand up and move around. I could see straight enough to leave the house but not quite well enough to drive. One day, a woman, not yet a mom, came by my house for her produce delivery and she said- "how do you do it all with this condition you have?"

And another, a mom this time, said, "You know, God is trying to get your attention. You need to listen!"
And she was right. All the years I had been listening and serving moms in my community. I got asked all the time, "How do you do it all and won’t you show me how?" And I did. So what was I missing this time?
But in that moment, all I felt was cheated and angry.
So I took pen to paper (and by that, I mean, I wrote a blog.) I set it all out for moms to see. This is what it takes for me to “do it all.” And I addressed it to them all - the “wannabe SuperMoms”.
I’ll admit, my heart wasn’t right when I shared it all that night. But what came next, was all part of God’s plan.

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Hey SuperMoms! I’m Mandy, and I’m Sarah. We are your hosts and the creators of the Crunchy SuperMom blog. Today we are talking about the concept of SuperMom perfection and why we all want it. You may not feel like a SuperMom or you might have already “hung up your cape” and stopped even trying to feel like a SuperMom. But isn’t there somewhere deep inside that still wants it? I know that was (and still is!) true for me. In this episode, we are going to offer you a new perspective and hopefully the realization that you CAN do it all. Just stay tuned to find out how and make sure you grab our PowerPlan at the end for specific directions on how to achieve all of this without feeling overwhelmed.

Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode! Get the Power Plan at Crunchy Super Mom.

Why are people always telling overwhelmed moms to hang up the super mom cape?
I really dislike this statement because I feel like it is just giving up and settling. And for me, that would lead to frustration and probably depression. Even though I am still striving toward my own SuperMom ideals, I need to know that I AM working toward them and that they ARE possible. While I don’t like to hear the statement “hang up the cape”, I do understand why that message is being put out there. As moms, we are constantly being bombarded with messages about how we are not enough, how we need to strive for a certain ideal, how we need to do more, give more, and basically be perfect. Those messages are incredibly damaging. We do need to reject those. However, we do not need to give up on the idea that we can be a SuperMom of our own life and on our own terms. We do not need to let go of the things that will make us be more calm, productive, patient, and loving with our families. We simply need to let go of the world’s many ideas of what a SuperMom is and reject any and all pressure the outside world puts on us to strive for some ideal that is not truly what we want.

We get it, moms are overwhelmed with all the things they do in life.
Mom puts pressure on herself. Her partner, her job, her church, her kids’ school and activities.... They all task moms with more to do every day. We know we should all say, “no”, a lot more than we do but that still doesn’t exactly empty our proverbial plates of stuff to do!

That’s why we want to squash the concept of hanging up the Super Mom cape. Instead, we want you to reframe the concept, realize you ARE a SuperMom, and strive for your own personal SuperMom ideals. Before we talk about what is wrong with the concept of “hanging up the cape”, let’s just do a little hypothetical situation here. Mandy, what would happen if you hung up your cape?

Today’s show is all about our favorite tips for getting better sleep. Click here for the Sleep Power Plan. As moms of little children, we often lack the ability to get the sleep we so desperately need. Considering our sleep is so precious, we want to maximize the quality of our sleep as well as how often and how long we get to catch those z’s.