Being a mom and CEO is a juggle, and it can feel like there’s never enough time in the day.
If you’re a business-owning mom, you know what I mean! I recently guested on the CEO Moms Building Wealth Podcast to talk with Kimberly Tara about how to make your (very limited!) time work for you. We discussed the benefits and challenges of being a mom and a CEO, how to turn off work-brain and be totally present after work hours, and the best way to get your ideas out of your head.
You can check out the episode here or read on for a breakdown of what we discussed!
How to Turn off Work-Brain
As a business-owning mom, I’m so grateful for the flexibility I have over my time. Being my own boss means I can coordinate my clients so I can leave in the middle of the day and attend events at the girls’ school… all without asking for permission and filling out a form.
But with that freedom comes the difficulty of shutting off my work-brain at the end of the day.
Meaning, I could be eating dinner or playing with the girls, and I can’t stop thinking about the things I left unfinished at work. Has this ever happened to you?
If so, you’re not alone. Parkinson’s Law tells us that work expands to fill the time allotted. Whether you’re a business owner or a 9-to-5-er, this means that if we’re not careful with our boundaries, work and work-brain can creep into our free time.
The fix? Establish a good workday shutdown routine.
A workday shutdown routine is just a series of physical steps that enables you to end your day feeling complete. It will help you leave your day knowing what you accomplished, what’s on the agenda tomorrow, and how you can prepare and plan for tomorrow.
The physical steps can be super simple, like shutting down your computer and closing your laptop. By following these steps, it allows you to step into your evening feeling complete and able to put work away until tomorrow.
Get Your Ideas Out
Having a good workday shutdown routine will help you be more present after work hours. Believe it or not, this could even make you better and more creative in your business.
Lin-Manuel Miranda says his best creative ideas come to him when he’s playing with cars on the floor with his kids. Play, free time, and letting your mind wander allow our brains to make subconscious connections with what we’ve dealt with during the day.
That means you might have your most creative business ideas when you’re relaxed and playing with your kids after work! But you need to let yourself relax and turn off work-brain in order for that to happen.
And when you have those great ideas, put them in a consistent place… so you can go back to being present.
How to Log Your Ideas
When it comes to storing our thoughts, one of the biggest mistakes we make is writing our ideas on a Post-It Note or a random scrap of paper. Then we struggle to remember WHERE we wrote that thing down.
So, have 2 different places where you write ideas down:
- A digital option: this could be the Notes app in your iPhone, a voice memo, or sending yourself a voice Voxer message.
- An analogue option: this could be one notebook, a notepad on your refrigerator, or your planner.
The key? Go back to the SAME PLACE every time. If you have different notebooks for different topics, you’ll run into the same issue as multiple Post-It Notes!
If you like physical notebooks, I recommend the TUL notebooks from Office Depot. They feel like a notebook, but you can take pages out of certain sections and move them into a different section without ripping pages or it feeling like a binder. If you want to organize your thoughts by section, try the TUL notebook out!
Finally, if you find that one system worked for you in the past, but it’s no longer working now, then that’s okay! Be willing to try a new system that fits your season of life now.
Want more? Listen to the full episode here.
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