Hi there!
Thank you for stopping by my neck of the woods today! This blog post topic has been on my mind for quite a while now as I’ve been navigating a new normal both personally and professionally with 2 littles in the house. My schedule is constantly being refined, thrown out and redone, and will forever be fluid and changing. Being an entrepreneur and a mother is an interesting combination. I admire my work ethic and drive to achieve goals, but I feel I can easily become an overachiever and a self proclaimed workaholic that compromises the work life harmony I so desire and it can be detrimental to my family’s needs. Gahh, it feels good actually admitting that and typing it out. Season’s change. I know this. What’s hard right now will become second nature and then something else will pop on my plate and I’ll be figuring everything out all over again. The thing I love most about this work is being able to be home with the babies and not missing the little things. Being able to help support our family while creating a work schedule around the babies is hard, but worth it. It’s also a powerful thing to be able to show your kids about creating something of your own and doing work you love.
After Caroline was born I found harmony and was in a great place work wise and mama wise. It took me a while to get there, but it was working. Then Caleb came. 2 babies under 1 year old. Yikes. Brides, vendors, ribbon customers, the blog, projects, small goals, big goals, husband, the family calendar, friends, me time. Oh, and postpartum hormones. Phew, it is A LOT. Caleb is now 8 months old and I’ve learned a ton about myself, my business, and seasons. I have these perfect little babies. My favorite quote is “The most important work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own home” and I know that is true. I don’t want to miss a single thing. I’ve gone from saying yes to everything I could do slowing down and understanding myself better (I’m an enneagram 9w1!) and realizing what is important in each season. Harmony isn’t something that comes easily or overnight and I have to fight for it everyday.
What is working
“Mama blocks” and “Work blocks”
I learned early on (the hard way) that I need to separate being mom and business. I cannot do both at once. There may be minutes here and there where Caleb and Caroline are happy playing independently that I could sneak an email or two, but I don’t. I have “Mama blocks” of time and “Work blocks” of time and they don’t overlap. My brain handles everything better this way. My work blocks during the week are for maintenance. The emails, the floral orders, proposals, contracts, phone calls. I have weekend work block of 5 hours on non-wedding weeks which is specifically for business growth, content creating, and other things to elevate OSDIM and RL.
Caroline going to preschool 2 mornings a week!
It’s been wonderful! She absolutely loves it. I still have Caleb with me, but it gives me little break. Our preschool is very community based and it’s such a sweet space for her to grow and play. I like that she has her own little thing going on. Caleb will be joining her later this fall!
Self Care
I’ve been on top of my self care game recently. This past weekend I attended a creative industry mama rest retreat. it was just 7 of us and it was so peaceful and full of great conversation and my heart needed it. I missed the kiddos, but they got some one-on-one time with Chris. I’ve also made a a few mom friends in the past 6 months and have made it a regular occurrence for girl’s night out. I attend MOPS every other week and make sure to have a little quiet time every day. Even if it’s just running a quick errand alone, it does a world of good for me.
Scaling Back
After Caleb was born I took leave from work, (Something I didn’t do with Caroline-yikes!) but when I went back to all the things, I wanted to really be BACK. I wanted to launch all these new things and go full force ahead. I was so motivated, I had all these big goals in mind, but none of the small goals of how to get there. I think at the time I thought I did, but I didn’t. So I decided to scale back. I’m setting more realistic goals for myself. We were going to launch a local line of occasion flower boxes over the holidays, I’ve now pushed that back to later this year. Ruffled Lane was going to relaunch this Winter, I’ve now moved that back to the Spring. These projects are important to me, but I’m trusting God in the timing of them. My main focus this Winter is working on the new brand and site and loving on my clients well. I’ve turned down opportunities for styled shoots and other vendor run possibilities which has been a little sad for my go-getter heart, but mostly freeing. Season’s change you have to go with the ebbs and flows. Being honest about where I am currently is so good for me.
What I need to work on
Have lower expectations of myself.
That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I’ve recently been told by multiple close friends that I require a lot (read: too much) of myself and my time. And as much as I hate to admit it, they are right. Don’t you hate that? This leaves me frustrated at what I didn’t get done and obsessing over to-do lists and it’s just a no good terrible way to be. SO where do I go from here? I have a pretty great weekly schedule right now that gives me my work hours for maintenance and growth, but I try to do too much in those spaces of time. So I’m starting to adopt a 3 rule. 3 priorities for work that I need to do everyday. If more gets done, then great! If not, it’s ok because my priorities for the day are checked off and I know that I will have done them well since I won’t be rushing through everything to try (and fail) at completing 20 things a day.
Waking up early.
I wish this was easy. Caleb and Caroline are great sleepers, but gosh sleep is a wonderful thing. I was waking up a bit earlier to go to Pure Barre classes locally, but I fell off that wagon pretty quickly over the holidays. Getting up at least an hour before the babies would let me have a little me time, whether it’s working out, having coffee in peace, or getting a jump on my priorities for the day. Praying I can make this happen and SOON! Lord give me strength.
Asking for HELP
This is so hard for me. I’ve been independent and reliant on myself since about 18. It runs deep within me. I see things that need to be done whether it’s in our home or my businesses and I know that I can do them all. For example, I can clean the house, I can package ribbon orders and schedule pick ups, I can maintain my inbox and social media platforms. Someone recently told me though, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” BOOM. It goes back to my high expectations of myself and I need to relinquish some control over certain things and outsource some things that will help free up my time and head space. Most importantly it will benefit my family. So I will be figuring out what I can outsource going forward. Again, Lord give me strength.
Family Meals
This one may seem a little odd for this blog post, but it is blended into my ideal work life harmony and when harmony is existing it makes things like family meals possible. I’m not great at this. Against our pediatrician’s advice, It’s been so much easier for me to give Caroline dinner separately and then Chris and I do dinner for us later after bed time. I long for home cooked family dinners, but it has seemed overwhelming to me with everything else I fit into each day. There are some magical unicorn days where we sit down and have dinner as a family (weekends usually) and it’s just so nice. One fix here might be to do family breakfast each morning. With Chris and I both working from home we don’t really have any rushing to do in the mornings so this may be a great option for us in this season.
My current weekly schedule
Mondays & Wednesdays
Mama block of time in the mornings with work blocks during nap time. Monday evening is a possible work night. Wednesday evenings are family date nights. M&W early mornings (6am-9am) are available as work blocks or me time. I need to take advantage of this time more. M&W are primarily OSDIM days.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Mama block of time in the morning. Caroline goes to preschool (9:30-12:30) Work block during nap time. Tuesday nights are possible work nights (5:30pm-8:30pm) if Monday wasn’t a work night- it’s either or. Thursday nights Chris has guy’s night so this is an automatic work night for me after the babies go down. This is when a lot of client calls happen on non-wedding weeks and is a big work night for me on a wedding week. Tuesday and Thursday daytime work blocks are geared towards Ruffled Lane. This is when orders are shipped and ribbon is created. (This may change once we relaunch)
Fridays
On wedding weeks this is an all day work day obviously. On non-wedding weeks, I take this day completely off. I’ve talked about this on Instagram before. Many fellow mamaprenuers opt for this and I love it.
Saturday or Sunday
Non wedding weeks. I take a 5 hour work block of time to work on my businesses. Depending on what we have planned over the weekend, the time of my work block changes, but it’s mandatory for me. Having an extended work block is a game changer for me. Do I feel guilty about sacrificing family time? No! This works gives me so much that is so sacred that it’s worth it. Dreams don’t work unless you do! Amiright? Hah.
Thank you for taking the time to read this! I’ll keep you updated here and over on IG of my progress with all this work and mamahood!
I’ll end this post with this-
“i think every working mom probably feels the same thing: You go through big chunks of time where you’re just thinking “This is impossible”- “Oh, this is impossible!” And then you just keep going and you sort of do the impossible.”
Warmly,
Michelle