Give yourself grace

Here we are in week #2 of Grace in Productivity and we’re already pumping the brakes.

We’re not stopping, however, so please stay seated with your seatbelt fastened.

Rather, we’re going to take a detour down the road less traveled to explore the grace in Grace in Productivity.

Let’s begin with a story…

Once upon a time there was a supermom of three kids. Her daughters were two years apart; her son came along 7 years later.

This mom made school lunches for her children every single school day. That’s 180 lunches x 12 years of school x 3 kids for a total of 6,480 lunches. In the early years she even drew Wonder Woman in perfect likeness on her daughters’ lunch bags.

In the later years, however, when she was about 6,470 lunches in, she made a brown-bag faux pas that would go down in history.

Her son arrived in the school cafeteria on that particular day and began to unload his lunch. Reaching into the bag for his daily Diet Coke (relax, it was decades ago, when we still thought diet pop was “good for you”) he pulled out… wait for it…

a Bud Light. (This is not an ad.)

That’s right. His supermom inadvertently packed an adult beverage and sent it with her son to high school.

The moral of this story?

If you’re trying to unload the cheap beer left over from the BBQ you hosted over the weekend, send it to school with your kids.

No. I’m kidding; please don’t actually do that. The moral of the story is that even supermoms make mistakes.

So give yourself grace, Mama.

We will continue to encourage you to utilize systems to improve inefficiencies. But in the end, whatever system you use has to work for YOU. And even then, it won’t always go as planned.

Be prepared to pivot and willing to laugh in the face of motherhood. (That’s the tagline for one of our favorite podcasts called What Fresh Hell. Check it out!)

This week we’re looking at productivity through the lens of learning to let things go, having realistic expectations, moving on, giving yourself a re-do whenever you need one and permission to skip the plan when it’s simply not in the cards.

Adopting these practices will ultimately improve your productivity because you’ll spend less time wallowing in what should have been!

Your kids can benefit from a similar form of grace. Read more about that below in this week’s Smart Reads.

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.

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📖 6 Skimmable Articles…

This week’s topic: Discover Grace in Productivity

🧗🏽‍♀️ Signs that you suffer from toxic productivity

“Since productivity is generally seen as a good trait, it can be hard to notice if you do it. According to Create Cultivate, there are some warning signs that your productivity levels are a bit toxic.”

Read Toxic Productivity May Be A Habit Of Many Moms, Here’s How To Manage by Ashley Wehrli

🏡 The definition of a clean house varies with the stages of mom-life

“It is important to communicate your expectations of cleanliness to your family so everyone has a clear understanding of how your home should be kept. However, make sure these expectations are realistic for the stage of life you are in… Too high of expectations can really set you up for a lot of unneeded stress!”

Read 18 Realistic Tips to Keeping a Clean House With Kids by Brooke Cavalla B.S.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  Does your kid fall apart after a long day of school?

“There’s a reason your kid is an angel at school or daycare but a hot mess at home. It’s called after-school restraint collapse. Here’s how to deal with it.”

Read After-school restraint collapse is a real thing—here’s how to deal with it by Colleen Seto

🗂 Want to help your kids be more productive at school?

“The truth is that there are endless ideas and opinions on what you can do to be more productive at school. However, rather than focusing on a long 50 tasks and pieces of advice to remember, try keeping a checklist of a few simple and easy things to do each day.”

Read How to be More Productive at School by Marvin Russell

🎗 Lower your expectations for the first week of school

“Your Friday night plans after the first week of school need to involve a couch, some blankets, a pizza, and a movie. That is it. That is all anyone can handle.”

Read Mom Of 5 Posts Mock PSA Online That Reveals Her Secret For Surviving The First Week Of School by Ileana Paules-Bronet

🥗 “When we try to be more productive, we get frustrated and burn out.”

“In the extreme, we may even be making ourselves sick from taking on too much, beating ourselves up internally, and sleeping too little. This isn’t about pushing yourself harder, or how to trick your body into not needing rest or sleep. This article will get you more results with the same (or less!) effort.”

Read 6 Effortless Productivity Hacks for Overwhelmed Moms by Cara Comini

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🎧 8 Entertaining Podcast Episodes…

This week’s Grace in the Race Podcast Playlist

📰 “You don’t have to be Supermom”

“We’ve been living under constant stress these past couple of years. In a recent survey, 93% of moms report feeling they’re burnt out. In this episode we’re excited to speak with Dr. Jen Riday who helps burned out, overwhelmed moms get off the hamster wheel and find balance so they can love their lives again.”

Listen to No Guilt Mom | You Don’t Need to be Supermom with Jen Riday, PhD (28 min)

👸🏻  This mom made mom-hacks a career!

“Entrepreneur and influencer Shannon Doherty (Founder, At Home With Shannon) shares her experience with life hacks, going viral, and the power of social media. She and Greg talk about the importance of self-understanding and doing what fulfills you while staying true to your values.”

Listen to What’s Essential | Shannon Doherty on A Platform to Influence Happiness (33 min)

💡 “Build the life you want.”

“Offering tips from the well-known program he helped develop, Bill Burnett, executive director of Stanford’s Life Design Lab, illustrates the ways design thinking can be used to help build the life you want.”

Listen to TED Talks Daily | How to design the life you want (6 min)

🤰🏻 “Get out of their way”

“Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains how science experiments are all around us—we just need to remember how to explore and be curious with our kids. Sometimes the best parenting move is to get out of the way and let our kids dive in without abandon.”

Listen to PG-ish |Let them be kids, featuring Neil DeGrasse Tyson (5 min)

😎  A Summer of Dates

In this bittersweet episode, Alyssa Hursh tells us about her summer of dates.

Listen to The Moth | The Date Jar: Alyssa Hursh (15 min)

🧗  “Tips on how to interrogate our gut feelings and consciously change the way we see people who are different from us”

“Do you think of yourself as a “good” person? Most of us do. But our unconscious biases are often more powerful than we realize. On this episode of How To!, guest host Celeste Headlee talks with Mahzarin Banaji, a psychologist at Harvard and the author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. She has some. “

Listen to How To! | How To Beat Your Hidden Biases (32 min)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  “A sweet and salty showdown”

“Two iconic foods go jar-to-jar in today’s fearsome flavor feud. It’s honey vs. pickles! Million Bazillion host Jed Kim goes up against comedian and journalist Anna Weggel. Which team dill prevail? “

Listen with your kids to Smash Boom Best | Honey vs. Pickles (35 min)

⏭  “An impaired physician? A terrible surgeon? Or a cold-blooded killer?”

“Kimberly Morgan was attracted to Christopher Duntsch from the moment she met him. He was charming and seemed destined for great things. But she also saw another side to him.”

Listen with us to Dr. Death | Occam’s Razor | 3 (44 min)

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🎬 This week’s Insightful Video…

An ode to rabbit holes (and other ways to avoid being productive… until it’s too late)

“Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn’t make sense, but he’s never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window — and encourages us to think harder about what we’re really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.”

That’s THE LIST for this week!

We hope THE LIST inspires you to get your ship together and get through your week with grace!

Do you have any go-to tips to for giving yourself grace when it comes to productivity … or a take away from The List this week? Leave a reply in the comments.

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