The Best Ways to Manage Your Energy While Staying Productive
Are you a busy mom who is stressing about the back-to-school season? In this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show, Cara shares her insights on managing energy and productivity during the back-to-school season, especially for work-at-home moms.
The back school season can cause you to burn a lot of energy which can lead to being less productive. For busy moms, there needs to be a good balance. Cara shares how the alignment between productivity and rest is intentionality. You need to be intentional with your time to ensure your moods are not all over the place. This can be done through time blocks to figure out where you have your energy managed. Schedule tasks when you feel you can accomplish them and feel good about getting them done. If you are more energized in the morning, time block all your tasks that might take more time or are labour intensive.
With all of this back-to-school chaos means there is more need to practice self care. Cara emphasizes the need to pull from the self-care bucket as much as needed. Time-blocking self-care every day is a perfect way to manage this to make sure the back-to-school season is tolerable. Throw in a workout in the morning before school or during the lunch break. Figure out a healthy and balanced routine to make sure your summer transition into the new school season is smooth.
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2:53 Discussion on balancing energy levels with productivity
5:33 Describing the chaos of back-to-school season
7:50 The importance of self-care
9:26 The significance of sleep and setting boundaries
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Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life, toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the purpose of episode 422. We are in the thick of it. It’s back to school season, and today I want to talk to you about how do you manage your energy while staying productive and being home right now. I know that my kids went back to school last week See.
Cara Harvey 00:01:00 And my immediate was I cannot wait to watch what I want to watch on TV. I can’t wait to just like, exist. But that mindset can also get in the way of the productivity and the things that I need to get done during the day. I really had a big takeaway this summer that I actually prefer. Don’t hear me wrong on this. I’m going to explain it, but I prefer more full schedule. And here’s why. Not the demands, right? We have football four nights a week and cheer, and we’re running here and there and there’s no chill. Not that I liked my slow summer if you listen to last week’s episode, but when it came to work, I find that on the days I actually have more scheduled, I’m more productive. Maybe you you have found the same, right? The Pareto principle says this. You know the task will expand to the time we give it. And the days that I have no calls, no urgency. This isn’t due tomorrow because I tend to work in a space that isn’t urgent, which again, I love and I encourage.
Cara Harvey 00:01:59 It can be hard to move forward on those days. It can be hard to get into a more slacked mentality. And I want to take that thought and talk to you today about what do you do when you’re working from home? Maybe your schedule is more open, maybe it’s more tight now you’re exhausted. How do you manage your energy to match your productivity? How do you manage your energy to match your time? How do you manage your energy to match your task list? These are all kind of integrated thoughts that we’re going to talk through now. Maybe your kids haven’t gone back to school yet like mine have, but the schedule is different. What I did, though, was that first day of school and my morning meetings, and then I took a nap, and it was the most glorious nap that I’ve ever taken, and I was super excited about it. Now that we’re into more of a full schedule because my kids start before Labor Day, which I grew up in the northeast, where like, you just go to school after Labor Day.
Cara Harvey 00:02:53 Well, that’s not how it is in Pennsylvania, which is still the northeast, but where I live in Pennsylvania, that’s not how it is. So they started in August, but then they have off a couple days for Labor Day, which is silly to me, and then they go back to school. So this week, when this episode is airing, is probably a more we’re getting back to a more quote unquote normal week. They’ll have a five day week next week and I’ll be able to have my full work week again. So I want to be mindful about my time and my energy so that I also don’t go, oh, look, I now have six hours a day again where they’re at school. Let me grind, grind, grind until I’m burnt out. You have to find a place where you meet in the middle, not just with your work tasks, but with your home task. With your personal goals. You are permitted to sit and rest. And I want to say that before we talk about productivity and energy today I saw this thing on TikTok, and it was like talking about the trauma response of those of us who grew up in a home where you were not permitted to just chill, where you weren’t permitted to sit, where you always had to be performing like hand off.
Cara Harvey 00:03:54 That’s me. Right? And so I don’t know if this happens to you. My husband comes home. I could be working all day long I could be doing all the things. I sit down for that one minute to scroll my phone or have my coffee or whatever it is. But my husband comes home for work and I immediately jump up and I’m like, I must be doing something. And me and him have talked with us, and he laughs because he’s similar where he’s like, yeah, I whenever you start cleaning or doing a thing, he’s like, I feel like I need to get up and do it too. And so we’ve talked through this. So I also just want to encourage those of us who come from this mindset of we must be performing all the time, that you are allowed to rest, and actually your body needs it. But what I have found to help me be in this good alignment space between productivity and rest is intentionality. I feel like that’s like intentionality. And grace is the space where all the things that I teach, all the things that we talk about here, are purpose driven.
Cara Harvey 00:04:41 Mom, I feel like, oh, listen, if you want to check out show notes, I’m sure I’m going to talk about some things. We’ll have links up, scroll up in your player. Go to a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast for 22. That’s where they’ll be hosted. All right. Let’s talk about the importance of energy management. If you are burned out you are going to be snippy You are going to not be performing at your best and you are going to be struggling. And time management and energy management, they are not the same thing. I can manage my time, but I need to use my energy management strategies in order to do it effectively. Does that make sense? The way I box my time out with my time blocks is one thing. I do that and then I ask myself, where do I have my energy managed? And what times of day is my refresh? And what times of day am I working on the right types of tasks? All right. We know what it’s like for us as moms, especially if you’re also juggling working from home.
Cara Harvey 00:05:33 You’ve seen it all summer, right? The kids needing you. Well, now we’re in back to school season, so now it’s I’m multi-tasking. I’m managing the calendar. I’m trying to make sure all the school paperwork is filled out. Oh, now we have school pictures. The first fundraiser is here. Sports are happening. You know, the spring schedule or spring? The fall schedule is up. We’re getting less sleep because we’re trying to stay up. I don’t know about you. Is that revenge? What is it called? Revenge? Bedtime Procrastination, right? That a lot of moms have. It’s the only time of day I get, especially in the summer. I will say my kids, my daughter slept in, my son did not. I slept in a little bit more and we were together a lot. They had a lot less camp. They were home most of the summer. And so that night time and they went to bed later, my husband and I talked about this because I was like, they went to bed at like 930.
Cara Harvey 00:06:16 And by the time my daughter got actually asleep, it was closer to 11 for her because she would just lay in her bed, she would play. I would hear her pitter patter of her feet sneaking around, playing with her dolls, reading her books like I wasn’t getting to bed so much later. But now that schools here, I feel like, oh, this is the only time I have is at night. I want to make sure that I’m using it. And then just the general stress. I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly like, my brain is in this world also, again, high functioning anxiety over here. So I’m always thinking and my brain never stops. I don’t ever sit down and my brain stops. It’s like I sit down and then my brain is like, well, what are we worrying about at the moment? Right. So I know that it’s challenging. So how can we do it? How can we practically manage our energy as we get into this Back-To-School season where we feel like we’re being tugged in a million directions.
Cara Harvey 00:06:59 Everyone needs us. This is the thing that I find very exhausting. Everyone needing you, decisions needing to be made, a lot of that decisions, fatigue. We’ll talk about delegation a little bit today. It can be exhausting. And you know, I’m in this place too, where we’re getting ready for the purpose driven conference. So work is taking a it’s my glass ball right now. We talk glass. Rubber ball is like work is taking this huge toll of like decisions I have to make. And it can be tiring. So. So what do we do? I’m going to talk about self-care. Let’s start there. It really is this place that you need to be in proactively. I just talked to my therapist about this because I was saying how I struggle with some negative self-talk and things like that, and what helps me not not have it right. I still struggle with it, but what helps me bounce back, what helps it happen less frequently, what helps me realize, like, okay, this isn’t factual, is the fact that I’m constantly pouring into my self-care bucket, right? Exercising, eating a little healthier.
Cara Harvey 00:07:50 Go into church therapy, right? Like all those things, I’m constantly like plug, plug, plugging along with them when I don’t need them A lot of moms are making this mistake, or we get to the point of burnout. We get to the point of stress, and then we’re like, I need to go take a yoga class. I need to go relax. Yes, you do, but you need to be doing these things. I was very bossy. I highly recommend you are doing these things also before you need them. You need to be pulling from that self-care bucket and taking care of yourself, right? It’s got holes in it all the time. You need to be plugging those holes. So what does that look like? I don’t know, you tell me. Right? For me, I know that I if I am not like doing an exercise of some sort, like taking a walk, I like to lift weights. Like if I’m not moving my body every day, even if it’s just like, let me go take a walk around the block, I’m super cranky.
Cara Harvey 00:08:38 So that’s a really big one for me. I try to get my workout in first thing in the morning, because it really does set the rest of my day up to feel good. I’ve also found different foods I eat impacts my mood. We know this. The sleep one is big, right? I think back to when my daughter was born and how us moms survived on such little sleep during those early baby years is mind boggling. To me it is like so dangerous. And then we’re driving cars and things and we’re just so sleep deprived. So those of you who have babies right now, I applaud you. Right? Because my kids are at the point where they sleep through the night, albeit they go to bed late, right? It’s exhausting. And I really have to make it a point, even though I want to stay up and watch another episode of TV, or read a couple more pages of my book, or scroll my phone for ten more minutes. I make it a point that, like, lights out for me is at 11.
Cara Harvey 00:09:26 I would like to even make that earlier, but again, because my kids don’t go to bed, so to late, the only time I get my husband is at the end of the night. You all know the story, right? And then I want a little bit of decompress time for myself, but I tell myself like 11 is the absolute latest. I will stay up. I don’t care if everything on my list needs to be crossed off. Still, unless it is actually urgent and has to be done by the next day, I’m not going to worry about it. I need to get my sleep because I do like to get up around 6:00, between 530 and 6 to have my mornings. I’m going to pause to invite you to something brand new we’re doing here at TM, ePDM, and that is the very first in-person, purpose driven Mom conference. September 28th and 29th. I am hosting an event right here in Philadelphia that you can attend where we can be together live. The goal of this conference is to help you decide what dreams you want to work on, what goals matter to you, and to really embrace the person you are now in motherhood.
Cara Harvey 00:10:23 We’re going to spend time mapping out the end of your year, creating time blocks for you to work on these dreams and goals. And I have three incredible guest speakers coming to help you embrace and love your mom life journey and go after your goals and dreams. This event is been on my heart for years, and if you go to a purpose driven romcom slash conference, you can hear and read all about it. And I want to let you know that this event will sell out. We will be capping around 60 attendees, so as soon as it sells out, it is done. I want you to head to a Purpose Driven mom.com/conference, or check out the show Shownotes for the link and come join us in Philadelphia. We are going to have the most incredible experience. It is in September. You have enough time to plan to make it happen to tell a friend, we cannot wait to see you at the Purpose Driven Mom conference and have some in real life time together again. That’s September 28th and 29th, and you can go to a purpose driven Nme.com conference to learn more.
Cara Harvey 00:11:18 So think about it for yourself. What sorts of self-care things can you do to kickstart or close out your day that are going to make you feel rejuvenated? At the end of the day, I know that scrolling TikTok does not rejuvenate me. If anything, it honestly makes me so much more anxious. I was just talking to my therapist too, because I’m trying. I’m thinking about taking like a social media hiatus because I was kind of a light on my socials this summer with work, and it felt great. And I was thinking about we were just getting, what is it, the names of my kids, teachers. And I thought about the fact that, like, I don’t have as many friends to text. And I was like, I saw people on Facebook posting about, oh, who’s got what? Teacher. And I was like, oh man, why didn’t anyone, like, read it? Not anyone. But like, you know, I feel like, oh, people don’t reach out to me like like I don’t have any friends.
Cara Harvey 00:12:02 Like nobody wants to hang out with my kids. Like I was starting to get in my zone about that, which is not true. But my brain likes to play this trick on me, right? I have plenty of friends, my kids have plenty of friends. But it’s when I see it on social media that I’m like, oh, why does no one want to hang out with me? Whereas if I didn’t go on social media at all, I wouldn’t even realize other people were hanging out and it wouldn’t. It would not bother me. I could be in my own bubble with my family and occasionally seeing a friend and be fine, but it’s the second I see it, other people doing things that it gets in my head. You know the story. I’m sure it happens to you too, right? Social media makes me more anxious. We think about a political climate, the climate of the world, like people like I. I know that it triggers a lot of anxiety in me, but I’m still on it.
Cara Harvey 00:12:42 So as we’re getting to the school year, I’m going to be committing to myself to actually getting off some social media apps, to cutting myself some limits, because I know that it’s actually sucking and draining my energy because it’s not serving me. Now, I don’t think all social media is bad, but I think there comes to a point where it doesn’t serve. So you have to ask yourself what self-care things will serve my energy and what will drain it. The other thing I’m going to recommend we. I mentioned this before about delegation. Asking for help is really important when it comes to your energy, especially when you’re trying to work from home. If you need help with something, if you cannot do everything, you can get help. And I know that everyone’s situation is different, but a lot of us don’t get help because we don’t want to ask. I talk to my husband a lot about this. Like, you know, he is as capable as I am of doing things. It was funny because I was talking to I don’t remember talking to, and we’re talking about, oh, me going away.
Cara Harvey 00:13:31 So September is the conference. I’ll be on Thursday through Monday, even though I’m only 30 minutes from my house. I’m staying downtown. I’m going away in October with my book club. I’m going away in November for my friend’s birthday, so I’m going away for three weekends. And I and I was talking, I think it might have been somebody in the club, but and it’s something about like, oh, just make sure you leave. You know, we’re talking about meal prepping and they’re like, oh yeah, just leave them like a good meal plan. And I was like, my husband is a capable individual. Like he can pack all of his own meals. And I used to do a lot of these things for them. I used to pack all of his meals and do all of his laundry and all those things, and it just got to be too much on me. And I worked just as hard as he does. I was like, I don’t want to do these things anymore for you.
Cara Harvey 00:14:06 And he’s like, I’ll do them. And it was just the simple asking, you know, my brain played the trick of a good wife would a good wife would, until I realized that I get to determine what a good wife is and not society. And all of these things that I see on here, it is again, social media. Right? So ask for help if you are, you know, in a relationship like your partner can help you with things. They are capable, your children can help with things. Talk to my daughter about this today. My kids, they were doing their own laundry. I started doing it again. They’re going back to doing their own laundry or at least putting away. I don’t need to be doing all these things. I have a list of cleaning tasks that I have to get done around the house. My kids can help with that. My son, he got in a lot of trouble this summer, and he had to do some chores to earn back some money, and it made me realize how capable he is of doing things like he puts the dishes away.
Cara Harvey 00:14:50 Fabulous. He’s going to be seven in a couple days from this recording. He is capable. Our kids are more capable than we give them credit for. And also if you need help, if you have other mom friends that you can rely on. One of the things I did this summer was if somebody said to me like, oh, do you want to have a playdate? And I wasn’t able to, I might ask them like, hey, is there a way I can just drop them off? depending on the friend, obviously, so I can get some work done. You’re allowed to ask for help. This is one of the things that helps with my energy a lot is asking for help. And also saying no. No is a complete sentence, and I am repeating this for myself as well. I talk this through my therapist again, and we talked about what the fall was going to look like for me. Because it’s not that my kids activities are exhausting, right? I mean, they’re time consuming.
Cara Harvey 00:15:36 My kids don’t do a lot of things. I want to be clear about that because people like you guys do so much. We really don’t. My daughter does cheer, my son does football and my daughter does Girl Scouts. My son did Cub Scouts last year. He decided he didn’t want to do it this year. The rule we have in my home is that you’re permitted to do one year round activity like scouts and one seasonal, so if it’s football season you’re not doing another sport, right? Type of thing. Basketball season, that’s the only sport you’re doing, etc. because my daughter chose competition cheer, which goes August through May. That’s pretty much all she does. And then my oldest, he’s in high school. He plays basketball. So he’s got one thing. So anyway, I just clicked because people be like, your kids are so busy. It’s not that they’re doing a ton of things, it’s that the activities they’ve chosen are more involved. Cheer is three practices a week. Football is currently for about to go down to three practices a week plus games.
Cara Harvey 00:16:22 Yeah, it’s more involved, but it’s one thing. But what I realized it was, was it wasn’t the activity itself. It was my involvement in the activity because I’m the type of person where my kid does an activity, I immediately am like, I can help. I want to help because I love to serve. It’s like it’s just something ingrained in me. I enjoy serving, I’m also a bit controlling, so I figure it honestly. My brain is like, I can do better, I can do a good job. I’m great at this because I also know that I have the skills to do things like that. But I told myself this year, going into it, I am not saying yes to everything anymore. I can help at a certain level, but I don’t mean to say yes for all the things. And that is scary for me as we get into the activities and I know things are going to be asked of me if it does not fit, I’m saying no. So like for Girl Scouts, I’m the Girl Scout leader.
Cara Harvey 00:17:05 I’m going to say yes. I also am what’s called the registrar. So they just change the name to that. But I help connect local people to groups. I build the Girl Scout troops in my town, so that is an extra volunteer position that I take on. If asked to do something else in Scouts, will I say yes? Probably not. I’m going in with the mindset of I am already taking something else on, right? So I’m I’m okay with saying no about other things. Cheer came up, there was a volunteer sheet. I’m going to volunteer for something. But I made a decision about what I wanted to volunteer for. I don’t like, I don’t want to stay at every practice, and there was a volunteer position where you would stay at every practice to help out, kind of like a teen parent. I don’t want to do that now, I do. In my heart, I’m like, oh, that would be so much fun. I’d love to be involved. I like doing this with my kid, but I am not at capacity.
Cara Harvey 00:17:48 So I had to kind of sit through and think about my energy, think about all of these things. And I was like, you know what? I can volunteer, but I can only do things that are like events. So I put my name down for the service committee, which is one of the things I was on last year. We do choose service projects for the year, Jim, a year you manage those, that’s it. They’re kind of like one and done. So I want you to also think about as you go into the school year, what’s your capacity? Because if you’re constantly pulling from your energy dregs of like volunteering and saying yes to everything, it’s not going to serve you with all the other things you have to do with work, with your home, with your personal goals. So I want you to ask yourself, does this serve my holistic life and not just this one piece? And I know it’s hard to say no, but it’s important that you do. Other people will step up and do things one or they won’t and it won’t happen.
Cara Harvey 00:18:35 But that’s not your fault. If your energy is being pulled and it’s not something you enjoy, you are permitted to say you don’t want to do it. If I didn’t enjoy helping out in serving at the service committee, with the registrar, with Girl Scouts, I’m telling myself this year I can say no. Like if I get to the end of the year and I decide I don’t want to do it again, I can say no. I actually really enjoy what I do in all of those roles. If it comes to a point where it’s not enjoyable for me, I know not every minute will be. But in general, I’m giving myself permission to say no because it’s not worth the energy put out and I want you to do the same thing. Now, one of the things I want to switch over to because we talked personal, let’s talk working from home now, right? Kids are gone. They’re at school. Maybe not your home schooling. You got a new schedule. I want you to be intentional about your high energy tasks and the peak time for them.
Cara Harvey 00:19:18 So one of the things that I do is a time inventory. I recommend you do one every quarter you go through. You write down what you’re doing, how much time it’s taking, etc. one of the things that that does for me is it tells me how long something’s taking, but it also just has me do a quick analysis of how long certain tasks take during certain times a day. Now I’m recording this. What time is it? It’s 1023 in the morning this morning. This 9 to 12 work block. For me. That is my highest energy time of the day. I feel like I’m more focused from 9 to 12. I’m coming off like that workout energy. Still. I’m fresh. I’m not burnt out. I feel like I perform better on podcasts now. I’ve had to do a couple podcasts this summer at night because it was the only time I had. It’s my lowest energy time, but it had to happen. So I also want to acknowledge that sometimes it just has to happen, right? But if you can pick your high energy times, those peak energy times, and match them with your peak activities, that’s where you’re going to be the most productive.
Cara Harvey 00:20:11 So things like coaching calls, I need a lot of energy to do them, but they don’t require for me a lot of work. And what I mean by that is because I am been doing this for years, because I know my framework, because I’m a certified life coach, because I have the skills I don’t have to prep to get on a coaching call, right? I can get on and I can use my skills and rock it and help people. And that’s what we do in the club, right? So I try to do all of those types of calls later in the day, because I know that I’ll be kind of coming off this high energy time. Other things that need more creative mindset for me, I try to do those in the beginning of the day as well. There are some things like planning. I can do it any time of day and I love it so I can do those later in the day as well. So identifying what those tasks are and making sure you’re doing them at the correct time for yourself is going to save you time, because you’re going to be procrastinating less.
Cara Harvey 00:21:01 There’s going to be less like looking around the room. What am I supposed to be doing? You’re not like pushing against how you naturally feel. And so I want to encourage you as you go into the season and you’re making your work blocks and your time blocks, and you’re thinking about how to protect your energy. When is the best time for me to work? I know that most my best time is 9 to 12. I actually would prefer to have less meetings from 9 to 12 so that I could sit at my computer and work. I’m contemplating moving some of my meetings in the fall to the second half of the day, so that I’m not, quote unquote, wasting that time. Where is my most creative time at a meeting that I don’t need that same type of brain energy for? Does that make sense? So pre-planning out that way I think is helpful. I’m going to pause and invite you to join us in this next cohort of the purpose of your Mom club. Right now, the Purpose Driven Mom Club doors are open for you to come and join us.
Cara Harvey 00:21:52 I want to make this fall a time where your goals get checked off your list. You feel supported and you do not feel alone. Inside the Purpose Driven Mom Club, you are going to get personalized coaching. We have calls every single day where you can jump on and someone’s going to hold you accountable. They’re going to check in on you. They’re going to do all the things that nobody ever does. For us moms, you’re going to get a patented framework that is going to help you take your goals and make them a reality. No more. I’m going to do this someday or I don’t have enough time to do it. This is very concrete. Let’s get it done. The Purpose Driven Mom club only opens four times a year, and we’re currently open right now. But you have to hurry because doors closed soon. Go to a purpose driven mom com slash club and join us now. But the other thing I do want to encourage you, especially if you’re working from home, is making sure you have transitions for yourself to preserve your energy.
Cara Harvey 00:22:44 So I teach time blocking and I teach a manner of transition blocks. And this is kind of the concept of like if you went to high school, you’d have a bell that rung and then you’d have five minutes or whatever to get to your class, and you go and all of a sudden you were in Spanish class and now you’re in history class and your brain has shifted into history mode. Do the same for your time. 9 to 12 was one of my work blocks, typically during the school year when I stop. So I create a transition activity. That’s when I have lunch. I’ll go ahead and be like, all right, I’m going to go sit and have my lunch. I’m going to go get some air. I’m going to go outside. I might go for like a walk around my pool like for two minutes. Then I come back and I do my second half of the day work after that. That’s my 12 to 3 block. I pick up my kids at 330. At 3:00 I try to close out my workday, check in all my boxes, and then at 3:00, I like to have something that conserves my energy to get me into mom mode, because once 3:00 hits, my hat, switches from work to mom.
Cara Harvey 00:23:37 And it is funny. I talk a lot about this to people. How I compartmentalize work so much. So many people in my real life have zero idea that I have this podcast. They don’t know what I do. I don’t talk about it enough. And for me, it’s just because not that it’s not important. And the work that I do is important to probably could help a lot of moms if I did things locally, but I do like to compartmentalize that so that I’m not thinking about work all the time. And then I go into mom mode. So what do I do? I will read, go for a walk, or again, like around the pool, get some some fresh air, listen to a podcast, meditate, do some prayer, some journaling. This is the time where I like to transition because I want to then give my kids a refreshed version of me. So if you’re coming home from work, say you work outside the home and I talk to my husband about this because sometimes he’ll come home.
Cara Harvey 00:24:21 And he was not transitioning well, right. He used to be a principal. Now he works at a university, but he would have parents calling him on the car ride home. He had an hour commute, like he was just always in work mode. So as soon as he got home, he walked in the door and he’s still in work mode, right? And his family needs him to be in family mode, right? And so we talked about this, and I said one of the things that could help is listening. Like one, don’t take calls on the way home, right. If you could help it. But listening to a podcast now, he listens to a book. I’ve gotten him into my favorite fantasy author So he listens to a book, he transitions. So when he walks in the door, he is. We always joke. My husband is very much dad’s like bandit from Bluey. So like that is bandit. He’ll be. And he say, if you guys watch Bluey, there’s a sand bandit like talks about what he does.
Cara Harvey 00:25:05 And so my husband, whenever he walks in a room, he’s like, dad walks in the building, or dad walks in the room and he says it and he, like, becomes dad. It’s actually really cute to like, if I, I’m like, oh, like, step outside and like, think about it. Like my my husband is a really great dad. And so he does those sort of things because he knows he needs to feel refreshed. Do you need to do the same? I do it even though I’m working from home, so it’s not like I’m driving or commuting because I struggled there when I lost my commute from when I was a teacher to work from home. I lost a lot of that transition and it was just constant go, go, go, and my energy was draining. So I want you to think, hey, how can I transition in a way that preserves my energy? Right before we go, I just want to give you a couple, like, long term energy boosters.
Cara Harvey 00:25:46 I know we talk some practical stuff you can do because I like the podcast to be short, sweet and practical. but I do want to just tell you there’s a couple of things you can do proactively to just help. One is build a support network. Now, I mentioned friends like I you know, I say that in my head, I have an amazing support network. If I needed my kid picked up from school or somebody to watch them because I had something else to do, I would have a list of people I could ask. And I know I say that from a very privileged standpoint, because not everybody has that. I’ve been very intentional about building a support community. When my daughter joined kindergarten, we didn’t know one person at the school, and that’s why I signed up for Girl Scouts. And they called me and they said, well, we don’t have a kindergarten troop, but you can start one if you want her with kindergartners. Otherwise she’ll be the first graders. And I made that decision to start the troop because I was like, I want to get to know people.
Cara Harvey 00:26:30 And it is sometimes uncomfortable to go out there like, you know, at football, like I know 1 or 2 parents, but I know I need to start talking to more people. At cheer. I’ve been able to talk to some people, so now, like football and cheer are on the same night at the same time. So if my husband can’t get home in time, I need help getting my kid to a sport. I’ve been able to have conversations with people and I’m like, hey, you need help I need help, let’s work it out. It can be hard if you’re introverted. Step outside of your comfort zone a little bit. Talk to people. People are just as nervous as you are. You know, a lot of times we don’t know what to talk about. When I was in network marketing, this is something I do use still. And for my network marketing days, I learned about the acronym form. And it’s a really good way to talk to people, especially like just if you don’t know them.
Cara Harvey 00:27:11 So F stands for family. Like how old are your kids really? It’s I think family for us moms is the easiest piece to talk about. Oh, is occupation right. You can ask people what you know, what they do for work if you wanted to. recreation. Like what do you do for fun? Oh, do you read? That’s what I mean. A lot of people, we talk about books. I talk to everybody and anybody about books I will like. I don’t care if I’ve never met you a day. And you. I hear you talk about a book I like. I’m about to come over there and we’re going to talk about the book. And then this was in my network marketing. It was message like, what do you want the point you want to get across? But maybe in this case, if you’re trying to make friends and talk to people, maybe the message just here is like, oh, our kids are in the same class. So I just mentioned earlier, we got all the school class assignments I actually don’t know a lot of parents from the kindergarten with my son.
Cara Harvey 00:27:53 He’s in first grade this year yet because to be honest, all of our friends, like my daughter’s friends, had younger siblings that were in the same grade. So it’s been really easy to just be like, well, just hang out with the siblings. Well, now, like I realized that I didn’t make as much of an effort in kindergarten for my son that I did for my daughter to meet people because we kind of already had people. Now we’re getting a first grade at this moment. Again, this is like three weeks before they go to school. That I’m recording is, I don’t know, one kid in his class. I have no idea who’s in his class. He probably will, but I don’t know any of the parents. So, you know, it reminded me that I wasn’t as proactive as I could have been about making a support network because I was like, oh, who could I reach out to to see the teachers? And I was like, I don’t really have anybody.
Cara Harvey 00:28:30 Like I reached out to the three people I knew, but that was it. I’m always the one who will just ask, so if my kid liked a kid and just talking about him and I meet them at pick up or something, I’ll just be like, hey, can I get your number in case we ever go to the playground? I can text you. You know, I just think it’s important to do it. Everyone is just as nervous as you. So build a support network and then also just work at that growth mindset. I know we talk about it all the time. That growth mindset says I am capable of change. Well, fixed mindset says this is the way things are and they will not change. If you believe that you were always meant to be that permanently exhausted pigeon that they tell moms they are, well, that’s who you’re going to be. If you believe that you don’t have, you’re never going to find a support system, that you’re never going to have enough time for your to do list, that you’re always going to be feeling scrambled, that you’re incapable of saying no.
Cara Harvey 00:29:13 That’s what your life is going to be. So working on this mindset of things may feel hard now, but it can be different. I can celebrate these small victories. Like working on all those things really does help. I just had to end with that because I’m a mindset person and you know, it really does matter. There are days where things are hard and I’m like, are never going to get it all done. But those days are so much less because I proactively work on it. I want you to go check out China and Serve a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast for 22. As we go into the school year, conserve your energy in places you need. There’s going to be all the forms coming home asking you to volunteer. Do it. I love volunteering, I think the world runs on volunteers in a lot of, in a lot of places. Right. But only do it at a place that conserves your energy. And saying yes to the things that light you up is going to be important.
Cara Harvey 00:30:00 Be proactive, be intentional. Find that sphere where intentionality and grace can mix. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I’ll chat with you soon. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.
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