5 Tools I Use To Keep My Sanity - guest post

Laura from www.realmomma.com has 2 kids – 6 and 2 – runs her business from home while managing a household, family, and is married to a super supportive husband who also works full time!  I asked her to guest post about how she manages motherhood and working, and keeping sane!

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We were finally in an easy routine where we could both work and our daughter was in school.  Our schedules were easy to juggle which allowed us to be active in our daughter educations and have the ability to drop off and pick up from school, then we had a new addition to the family and things changed quickly and life became chaos.  Changing my role in the family to work at home Mom was one of the biggest challenges in my life, I needed to learn a whole new way be organized.

The biggest challenge I meet on a daily basis is people not realizing I don’t just sit on the couch all day eating bon-bons and watching soap operas.  People don’t think of the work at home Mom as managing a household, business, and a family – talk about multi-tasking!  I had to find a way for it all to work and balance so I didn’t lose my sanity, unfortunately that means working in the wee hours of the morning or staying up after the kids go to bed.  Slowly we are finding a way to balance it all and settling into routines that make life a little easier.

The tools I have found useful in my crazy busy life are:

-          A big calendar on the fridge with all of our schedules, we also use google calendar and sync with our phones and computers but it is nice to see it written and easy to view daily

-          A weekly meal planner (I only plan dinners), I never feel stressed about meals anymore

-          Planning my day the night before so I can evaluate how to use my time the best and reflecting on my day through journaling

-          Celebrating in my accomplishments and not dwelling on the tasks I didn’t complete

-          5 minute tidy – doing a quick clean up before I go to bed, I found a clean house to wake up to puts you in a positive, productive mood first thing in the morning

My advice to you is to find what works for you!  Balance might be hard at first but with a little time and effort things do get better.  For me it has been a lot of trial and error to find the right balance and the perfect working conditions. I’ve learned that sleep can be caught up on and you’ll find a way to function and hold it all together even though you slowly feel like you’re going insane.  Been there. Done that.  You will survive.