Finding Flow: Reorganizing My Time as a Working Mom

Transcripted generated below: Hello fam and welcome to Monday Musings with Kissa, where I share what the heck happened last week, what I have planned for this week, and a story time, not in that particular order. This is the audio companion to my Substack newsletter that I send out every Thursday. So if you're not already subscribed, there's a button somewhere here where you can do so, and content. As of this recording is currently free.All right y'all. Let's talk about last week. So we didn't have a Monday musings episode last week because it was Labor Day and I just decided, you know what? I'm going to take a day and I'm so glad I did. But it was a short week and whenever it's a short week like that, I definitely do feel a little bit rushed.On top of Labor Day, Micah, my son also had Tuesday off. So we had to make Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday work for us as best as possible. There's a lot going on. It was back to school night at school, and we started extracurricular activities for both the kids Gelie, My 3-year-old - or she's going to be three, started ballet last week and it did not go very well. I thought she was going to be so excited to be part of ballet and she was very hesitant. Uh, didn't even participate, but we sat there and we stayed for the entire class so that she can watch, get a little bit familiar. With her surroundings and the other kids and just kind of observe what was going on. So it was really important to me that we stuck with the schedule. We stayed for the entire class, even if she wasn't participating, just to get her more comfortable.And then Micah, who is five, he restarted TAP class and that went really well. He picked up pretty much where he left off, and it was really exciting for him to be seen and acknowledged that he knew a few things about tap. It really lifted up his confidence in a way that I think he really needed because he's going through so much change and newness. I think being familiar with something and jumping in and feeling like he knew a little bit instead of learning something new yet again, gave him a little bit of a confidence boost. So I was really happy about that.And then for me, there was a realization somewhere within the week that there is just a readjustment that needs to happen and how I prepare for business and life, like my approach to scheduling and preparedness and. You know, prepping lunches and doing all these things, there has to be some kind of readjustment because the last few weeks, what I was doing in the past just wasn't really working for me.And I now understand why there are so many different options as far as mom or parent planners because there are so many calendars that need to be managed. Not just mine, but I have to work with my husband's schedule. What are on the kids' schedules? There's two different kids' schedules going on and it's, it tends to get really overwhelming and that realization. Also just kind of pushed me to realize that a readjustment needs to happen.So let's get into this week since I knew something needed to change. These are the, you know, two or three things that I'm going to try personally to help with that change or facilitate that change.First, after I drop off the kids, I'm gonna do what's called. What I call barista time, that is making my morning drink, whether it's a coffee or a matcha or whatever it might be, and figure my stuff out. I think I just need a moment at the beginning of the day before anything else starts where I can add to my to-do list. I can figure out what needs to be reprioritized and what is a non-negotiable that can't be moved.It'll give me kind of like that moment to just iron things out and helps me to feel like I have more of a handle on things. Another thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to schedule buffer time in between items. So before or after an event or a meeting, I'm gonna give myself like 10 or 15 minutes just to regroup.So here's an example. Today I have my weekly call with my friend Elisa. And ideally what I would wanna do is before the call, I want to recap what we talked about the week before so I can give her an update on anything that she's supposed to hold me accountable to. And then during the call I used Notion AI to take meeting notes and jot down actionable tasks.And then at the end of the call, I want to debrief before I close things out, before I forget about the meeting notes. I wanna read through them, make sure that what notion AI actually captured was things that are. Important to me and then add if need be, or take away if necessary, and then move those action items into my tasks database within notion.That way I know it's there. I can remove that out of my brain space, and then I can check on what's next on my calendar. So those three things, having that prelude to the event. Being able to be present during the event and then doing a debrief at the end of the event I think will be very helpful for me.But I need to make time in my calendar for those things. And that leads me to the third thing that I wanna do. Which is be more detailed in my calendar. I wanna add that buffer time before and after each event in my calendar. But I also want to include travel time when applicable. I am an Apple user, so I can only say this with confidence about Apple Calendar, but. There's a portion in there where if you enter the address of the place that you need to get to, you're able to include travel time and factor that in to your calendar, and I think that's just. Such a smart idea. It's something that I need to factor in because that is a necessary step for things like picking up the kids, running an errand, going to the grocery store.Anything that requires me traveling out of the house should factor in travel time. Now, that leads me to. My pseudo story time, and here I just wanted to share with you why, why do I even want to do this? And I've been reflecting about it for the last week or so now, and I realized that these past few months. I've been trying to focus on the word maximize and mostly in regards to time. I've been wanting to focus on maximizing my time, mainly while the kids are at school. And last week I was asked why this was so important to me and I realized I kept saying. My why was because I wanted to focus on work while the kids were at school and when the kids are home, I want to be present and not be thinking about work.And I realized that there's more to it than that. I feel like I'm not doing enough while the kids are at school. There's just this feeling of scarcity there that I could be doing more or I'm not doing enough, and that's not necessarily true every day. Yes, there are those moments where I make bad decisions and I choose to just be lazy and not do anything.But there are a lot of days too where I get a lot of things done, but I had to ask myself, why do I feel like I'm not getting things done, but I feel like I don't have enough time? The things that get in the way are actually distractions that are happening when I'm transitioning from one thing to the next, or one event to the next.I fill that time with busy work. And I find myself pushing the important things to the very last minute. So I tend to feel rushed all the time. Yes, there are days when I don't make wise decisions, but there are also days where I knock it out of the park and it's okay.I don't need to have a home run every single day. That's honestly not sustainable. I'm gonna burn out. And realizing these things made me reflect and ask myself what could help me to reduce these feelings of my schedule being packed, but not actually getting a lot done, which is what led me to what I mentioned before about planning my week. This week.I wanna be. More intentional. I want to add buffer times. I wanna be more detailed with my calendar in hopes that. It'll help me to reduce those feelings of not being productive enough. I don't know if this resonates with anyone else, but hey, I thought I'd share what's going on in this brain of mine, but that's it for today, friends.Thank you for your time and if you enjoyed this audio edition, please share it with a friend. For the full Monday musings experience, subscribe to my substack at the notion mama.substack.com.And until next time. Know that you are a blessing, and I am so glad you're here. Bye friends. Get full access to Kissa - the Notion Mama at justkissa.substack.com/subscribe