Spoiler Alert: your free time is tied directly to your productivity.
Welcome to our series on Grace in Productivity!
We’ll be here for the next 8 weeks.
Productivity is a touchy subject so you’re bound to have questions…
For example, you might be wondering, what is this “free time” you speak of and where might moms get some?
Ah, an excellent question!
In this week’s recommended TED Talk, Laura Vanderkam digs into this very idea. Read more about it below and spend the 12 minutes to watch her talk linked in The List. It’s loaded with grace!
Additionally, as we work through this series on productivity, you’re going to hear more about our mom-life management system called The MotherShip Method.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll recognize our tagline: Get your ship together!
Regardless of how you might feel, you’re doing a great job!
Buuuut… what if you could rock motherhood AND free up a little of that magical, fairy-dust laden, “free time” we mentioned?
We’re all about working smarter, not harder because life is too short, we’re too tired, and someone is screaming MOOOOMMMMM again. So stay tuned as we show you how to make MotherShip go to work for you!
This week specifically, we’re ramping up to productivity. It’s not something to jump full boar into – hint: that’s why people quit it.
Instead, we’re taking baby steps because babies are the perfect metaphor for mom-life: sweet, messy, unpredictable and always growing and changing. Oh, and let’s not forget about the screaming, the crying and the blow-outs… metaphorically speaking, of course.
Get your ship together with us over the next 8 weeks (and beyond) and access all of this week’s resources, expert tips, insights and more in The List.👇🏽
The List
15 Expert Resources for Moms – updated weekly!
6 skimmable articles that offer perspective on this week’s topic, 8 informative and entertaining podcast episodes to make the chores fly by, and 1 insightful video to inspire you to move forward with grace.
📖 6 Skimmable Articles…
This week’s topic: Parenting & Productivity
🏡 Use these tips to stay on track!
“We all have things that we’ve been putting off. To get those things done, I create rituals to help them become ingrained as habits. Think of something that you do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis that you can pair with that forever postponed activity.”
Read I’m a Mom and a Productivity Expert: Here Are 5 Tips to Stay On Track by Laura Mae Martin
👨👩👧👦 How realistic is productivity as a parent?
“Have you ever read an article on productivity and thought it would be great for someone without a family, but with a family, you couldn’t really implement most of it?”
Read How to Increase Your Entire Family’s Productivity (This article was originally published on MoneyMiniBlog)
🗂 Does free time stress you out?
“If you feel stressed even when you’re ‘relaxing,’ take a cue from these savvy moms and dads.”
Read 5 Things Parents Who Actually Enjoy Their Free Time Do Differently by Rachel Bertsch
🎗 Are you really in control of your schedule?
“Just like the traditional way of working is set up for employees who are childless or supported by someone who’s the default parent, most productivity advice assumes you have full control over your own schedule. Ha.”
Read I Used to Love Productivity Advice. Then I Had Kids by Alexis Grant
🥗 “One study found that having children lowers women’s average productivity by over 17%”
“There may be a light at the end of the tunnel, however: That same study found that parents of children age 12 or older tend to be more productive than people with no children.”
Read 4 Ways to Sustain Your Productivity as a New Parent by Kenny Kline
🧗🏽♀️ Teach them [productivity] young!
“‘When we teach children strategies for time management from an early age, they internalize them, which sets them up for lifelong success,’ says Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., president of the Research Institute for Learning and Development, a nonprofit research and educational organization.”
Read The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management by Sharon Duke Estroff
🎧 8 Entertaining Podcast Episodes…
This week’s Grace in the Race Podcast Playlist
📰 It’s Mom’s New Year!
“Join Kristy as she prepares for back-to-school and discusses what hasn’t worked in the past. She talks through the changes she is implementing on organizing supplies, clothes, kid’s spaces, and the home to be more efficient!”
Listen to START with Kristy Dickerson | Tips for Back-to-School Organizing (15 min)
👸🏻 “Elissa couldn’t escape her mother’s emotional and verbal abuse”
⚠️ “Children are often taught to respect and honor their parents. For Elissa, this is complicated by the fact that her mother has narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Now, as an adult, she must learn how to untangle herself from her aging mother’s web and still provide the care she needs.”
Listen to Terrible, Thanks For Asking | Motherland (54 min)
💡 “Talking about money can feel intimidating”
“But it’s also the key to fostering a closer connection with your partner. In this episode, financial therapist Amanda Clayman breaks down five crucial elements to a healthy financial relationship with your significant other.”
Listen to Life Kit | 5 Ways To Rethink Money In Your Relationship (17 min)
🤰🏻 “There is beauty to be found in the darkness”
“Every day, we hold contradictions in our hands between the loveliness and the ugliness of it all, and we always want to find formulas and reasons for what happens—but the truth is that sometimes we never know the answers. And when we find comfort through authentic community, we show our kids the value of relationships, genuine emotions, and love. “
Listen to PG-ish | Life is so beautiful, and life is so hard, featuring Kate Bowler (17 min)
😎 “Kristen Bell is an actress, singer, and podcaster Dax Shepard’s wife”
“Kristen rejoins the Armchair Expert to discuss her experience shooting Family Game Fight, which animal she thinks is the cutest on the planet, and how she feels we can solve the collective male rage that exists in the world. Kristen, Dax, and Monica reveal how women are expected to self-regulate, and what you should do if you are ever buried in an avalanche.”
Listen to Armchair Expert | Kristen Bell Returns (72 min) 💣
🧗 Thinking outside the box — parenting edition
“After his son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Billy Samuel Mwape describes how project management — the process of leading a team’s work to achieve goals on a tight timeline — can help you tackle life’s biggest challenges.”
Listen to TED Health | Billy Samuel Mwape | An innovative way to support children with special needs (15 min)
👨👩👧👦 “A father and daughter go fishing…”
“When they return home, the daughter has changed. Part myth and part mythology, this children’s story brings to light the importance of heritage, the mystery of lineage and the beauty of intergenerational communication.”
Listen with your kids to Little Stories Everywhere | Under the Water (21 min)
⏭ “That’s not the man I know”
“Chris Duntsch was a promising medical student, with a bright future ahead of him. The friends who knew him were shocked at the doctor he would later become.”
Listen with us to Dr. Death | Chris and Jerry | 2 (44 min)
🎬 This week’s Insightful Video…
“There are 168 hours in each week. How do we find time for what matters most?“
“Time management expert Laura Vanderkam studies how busy people spend their lives, and she’s discovered that many of us drastically overestimate our commitments each week, while underestimating the time we have to ourselves. She offers a few practical strategies to help find more time for what matters to us, so we can ‘build the lives we want in the time we’ve got.'”
That’s The List for this week!
Do you have go-to tips to for gaining control of your free time … or a take away from The List this week? Drop us a note in the comments.
As always, we hope our newsletter inspires you to get your ship together and get through your week with grace.
Have a good one and please reach out if we can be helpful to you in any way!
Love & Grace,
Rachel & Amanda
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How to Hold an Effective Weekly Family Meeting