Regardless of the kind of mom you are, I’m sure you feel like you do it all.
You slave over the house with the dishes, laundry, cleaning, making dinner, grocery shopping, budgeting. You slave over the kids from picking up after them, taking care of them, entertaining them, hauling them from one event to the next. You slave over your husband being attentive to ALL of his needs. Not to mention, some of us moms slave over the finances and add a full-time job to the mix. And you have a responsibility to take care of yourself and your own health, but you’re too exhausted, overwhelmed, and stressed out with everything else to even consider yourself. With so much on your plate, how can you possibly manage it all? Looking back at history, a lady’s role was often considered to be a homemaker and caregiver to children. In today’s day and age, it’s now not only appropriate for women to work outside the home, but it can often be necessary in order for the family to be able to have a certain quality of life. Not only do women carry the weight of financial provision out of choice or necessity, but there is still the weight of caring for the home and children that expectantly falls on them, intentionally or otherwise. For the health of our mind, body, and soul, women were not meant to be superwoman nor were they meant to take on two full-time jobs.
Maybe it’s because I’m stuck on binge-watching Reign or it’s the fact that I just bleached my hair to a color that now resembles the Mother of Dragons’, but I’m convinced that I’m capable of figuring out how to manage my life at home and work in order to rule like the Queen I’m claiming I am {royalty in Christ, right? ?}. When I’ve been given so much responsibility to take care of a household, I shouldn’t be slaving; I should be ruling.
Whether you’re a full-time stay-at-home momma or a full-time working momma, this is a post for the weary-hearted soul who needs encouragement and help straightening her crown in order to rock her reign over whatever tasks may be on her plate right now … right after a glass of wine.
Delegate
Delegation is not shirking your responsibilities. It’s working smarter instead of harder. How you delegate will be dependent on your workload, time, and finances. Ask your husband to take on some additional responsibilities or trade responsibilities with him to find something that is more enjoyable {and doesn’t feel like a chore} for you and maybe him too. Give your children more responsibility around the house. Maybe there’s an incentive in store for them. Take that family member’s offer up to babysit, hire someone to clean your house, enlist in a grocery delivery service, enroll in auto-pay so you don’t have to keep track of your bills, utilize daycare and after-school care. Even Siri or a Google Home can be helpful for a cheap personal assistant to keep you on task and schedule.
Learn to Love Lists
Making lists will help you prioritize, but more importantly than that, you should immediately start your day by writing a specific list of the three most important things that you need to get done that day. If nothing else gets done, at least you know you were productive and accomplished the three things you needed to. Also, if you don’t have a planner – you need one!
The 10 Minute Rule
Consistency throughout the week in small portions prevents the responsibilities from piling on too high and making you feel overwhelmed by having to tackle them all at once. To help balance consistency throughout your week, set a timer for 10 minutes in the morning to pick up a room in the house, including getting a load of laundry in first thing, and set a timer at night to do the same thing. You can pick whether you want a 10 minute clean up to cover the whole house or just one room to make it a more thorough pick up. You will be surprised how much you can get accomplished in a small amount of time when you feel pressured to get as much done as you can in only 10 minutes. This will not only lighten your load, but there’s scientific evidence that shows you will feel better and more productive when you have less visual noise distracting you.
Be Present
Whether you are at work or at home, be 100% present to the tasks at hand. Don’t take your work home with you and don’t take your home into work with you. Respect the the space of both places and the people who share those spaces with you. If your worlds collide and you work from home, carve out specific time for work and home responsibilities and respect those boundaries.
Take Breaks
You deserve a break, no really, you do! It is actually more helpful for your productivity to take breaks and let your mind relax so you don’t get decision fatigue. We are not meant to concentrate on something for long periods of time.
Value Yourself
Remember your worth. Your world would crumble without you holding it together. You are important and needed which means your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health is of the utmost importance as well, perhaps even above everything else. Meditate, pour encouragement into yourself, seek wise counsel, give wise counsel, and always “dress to impress”. How you feel on the inside will be reflected by how you appear on the outside. And how you look on the outside will affect how you feel on the inside.
Blessed NOT Stressed
When you feel stressed by the weight of the world, refer back to this list and remember that you have been blessed with so much responsibility that you have the opportunity to be grateful for. Gratitude changes our perspective from we HAVE to wash dishes to realizing we CAN wash dishes. It makes us realize we have hands to wash the dishes, dishes that we get to wash, food provided for us that was on those dishes, and a beautiful family that was able to enjoy a meal off them. We don’t HAVE to; we GET to.
When you wake up tomorrow, spend some time meditating, write a list of 3 things you’re grateful for, a list of 3 tasks you must get done today, take 10 minutes to clean and put in a load of laundry, and embark on your day’s journey … just don’t forget your crown.
Do you have any daily rituals that you swear by to help you manage and reign over your kingdoms? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
